How do you consider a route to be travelled?

[michih]

I'm just not sure if I'm allowed to have two files on the database so I did not upload.

Sure! You only need a unique list file name.

[Duke87]

I'm unfussy about the details of how I traveled the road so long as I traveled it. Yes it counts if I was not the one driving. Yes it counts if walked or biked. Yes it counts if it was at night. Yes it counts if I am not old enough to actually remember the trip but know I was there. Yes it counts if I was asleep for the ride. Yes it counts if I traveled the road back when it had a different number, or when it was just an unnumbered local road before any route shields were put up.

I am even so bold as to say "same ROW same difference", such that I consider driving along a freeway frontage road to be valid for clinching that section of the freeway (and vice versa) so long as they are adjacent without development between them. And my claimed clinch of Allen Road comes from having ridden the subway line that runs in the median of it.

Where I will get fussy is that if the route is realigned to a nontrivial degree: I will consider it a declinch in such cases, which results in annoyances such as this (I had US 50 entirely clinched east of the Kansas City until INDOT went and moved it...). That said it has to be a substantial realignment such as the road being moved out of town onto a bypass. If it's moved onto a new bridge that was built next to the old one, or if an intersection is relocated by a few hundred feet, etc. I will comfortably ignore these things.

[si404]

I am even so bold as to say "same ROW same difference", such that I consider driving along a freeway frontage road to be valid for clinching that section of the freeway (and vice versa) so long as they are adjacent without development between them. And my claimed clinch of Allen Road comes from having ridden the subway line that runs in the median of it.

That reminds me, I have a bit of the A1020 by riding on the DLR in the median (dipping under it for stations).

But I don't count, for example, the Northern Line under the A24. Same ROW, but you don't see any of the roadway above.

[oscar]

If it's moved onto a new bridge that was built next to the old one, or if an intersection is relocated by a few hundred feet, etc. I will comfortably ignore these things.

Bridge replacements are so common that otherwise it's nearly impossible to maintain clinches. I generally ignore them.

[cl94]

I generally will count clinches by any of the following modes

- Driving
- Bicycling, either on the roadway or shared-use path (this is how I have Rock Creek Parkway)
- Walking, either on a sidewalk or shared-use path (several roads around DC and London in my case)
- Bus (transit, school, or coach)
- Streetcar/tram in the median or travel lanes and on the same level as the road (i.e. part of US 20 in Boston)

I will NOT count:
- Driving a freeway as clinching the frontage road if it is a different route (or vice-versa)
- Walking/driving under an elevated freeway or above a buried freeway
- Riding a rail line alongside, above, or below a numbered route, even if it's the same ROW, unless it meets the exception listed above. This means no using the Orange Line to clinch I-66.

I won't let bridge replacements or minor realignments affect a clinch. Anything more than a few hundred feet or a new expressway requires a re-clinch. As such, I considered my US 33 OH clinch broken once the Nelsonville bypass opened until I was able to drive the bypass.

[kjslaughter]

Not sure why I never considered walking, but that adds a little bit to my routes in Boston and Philadelphia.  Most of my walking in DC was along Mall, so can't add anything there.

Totally agree on bridge changes, unless it's like changing from a large old truss bridge to a big new cable stayed design, such as in Brunswick GA several years ago.  Same ROW lets me still consider roads long ago widened since my last travel.  But yes, new bypasses don't count.  Lost some of GA 72 east of Athens for that reason.

[bhemphill]

I count any mode of travel on the road.  Walking on the sidewalk along the route is acceptable.  I don't do subway or train next to a road though.  I think those should be travel routes in systems to be added, although only really fast trains (175 mph or faster usual travel speed i.e. Eurostar, TGV, ICE, Shinkansen) because they have only a few fixed stops instead of every little whistle stop.  Frontage road only counts in 1 point per interchange instances where the actual ramps are so far apart, or rest areas and welcome centers since it is get off and get right back on.  If the bridge replacement moves the right of way enough for the maintainer to make points for the old route, I tend to de-clinch that segment.  I don't include routes from before I was 6 or so that I haven't traveled again, since I don't remember them or know how we got from point A to point B.  The points can count in county travels though.  On a trip as a teenager I know that we were at Hyde Park and the Vanderbilt mansion on the Hudson River and then were at Niagara Falls, but I have no clue how we got from point A to point B as I remember that my parents were tired of paying tolls.  So there are some odd gaps for that trip, but I have as much as I can remember we covered for sure.  Other trips were easier to figure out the route, or didn't look so strange with pieces missing.  If my dog sled rides or snowmobile rides had gone over routes closed for winter, I would have counted those.

[mapcat]

Besides driving, or being a passenger, I've clinched roads on a bike twice and in a golf cart. I've walked segments to clinch a route, but never walked an entire route. That needs to happen somewhere in Kentucky on one of those quarter-mile-long routes. Thanks for the idea.

The discussion on declinching is interesting. Rather than thinking of roads as declinched, I more optimistically look at them as reclinchable. If I truly clinch a road (i.e. travel from endpoint to endpoint), from that point forward it's clinched forever, unless one of the endpoints moves to a new location not previously on the road. So a route that's extended (ON 407) or rerouted at the end (US 175) gets removed from the clinched list, but a route that keeps its endpoints and is rerouted somewhere in between (such as US 61 south of Cape Girardeau) remains clinched. I still keep track of them in my .list, with a special entry at the end. The reclinchable segment of US 501 in Virginia, for example, shows up as

YYVA US501 *OldUS501_S *OldUS501_N

I prefer to keep this list short, so whenever I'm near one of them I will travel the new section and remove it from the reclinchable list. To avoid slightly exaggerating my mileage, if a reroute results in the addition of a business route over the former alignment (TX 31), I won't add the business route to my .list until I've travelled the new alignment.

This policy doesn't affect reroutes on unclinched highways. For example, US 6 was rerouted in Sterling, CO earlier this year. Since I'm still missing mileage on US 6 elsewhere, I deleted the rerouted segment from my .list.

[oscar]

This policy doesn't affect reroutes on unclinched highways. For example, US 6 was rerouted in Sterling, CO earlier this year. Since I'm still missing mileage on US 6 elsewhere, I deleted the rerouted segment from my .list.

I did that, too, even though I've otherwise clinched US 6. Fortunately, that segment is close to an Interstate, and it shouldn't be too hard to re-clinch next time I'm out West.

[formulanone]

I count driving, biking, walking, and any other transportation where I can see the road but still be near to the ground. It counts to me if I was awake and aware of the route travelled, and time of day or night does not matter. For example: I don't remember exactly where I was driven in Las Vegas, because I wasn't driving and wasn't fully aware, though I remember an I-215 shield when being shuttled around, and seeing a Nevada 604 shield when walking around. So I don't count any of that, since I'm not sure which routes I entered and exited from with much precision (and NV 604 was decommissioned).

I think I've clinched exactly two roads by walking them; I've driven one of them before, and the other isn't yet on TM.

Minor realignments don't de-clinch a segment, unless there's some significant visual distance (say, over 0.25 mile) between points. I'll count a route that's been renumbered if I drove on the same pavement and place.

Despite a lot of flying; no, I don't count routes nor counties I have flown over. I'll count the county I landed/departed from if I walked on the ground...but to date, there's only one county for which I've never left the terminal (Salt Lake City). That hasn't stopped me from snapping a few shots, though:




UT201 Facing West at 3200 West Intersection by formulanone, on Flickr

[yakra]

I count driving, biking, walking, and any other transportation where I can see the road but still be near to the ground.

USBR 1 is immediately parallel to much of ME US1 ME24 ME196. At times, it's a tiny bit away but still visible. Sometimes it diverts a bit farther away, through the trees, finally peeling away west of ME196. If you'd only traveled USBR 1, would you count US1 as traveled?

[formulanone]

I count driving, biking, walking, and any other transportation where I can see the road but still be near to the ground.

USBR 1 is immediately parallel to much of ME US1 ME24 ME196. At times, it's a tiny bit away but still visible. Sometimes it diverts a bit farther away, through the trees, finally peeling away west of ME196. If you'd only traveled USBR 1, would you count US1 as traveled?

Pretty much. I'm not going to discount a clinch because you didn't see that road for a second or two. "Visual clinch" applies in cases where it's adjacent.

(I thought I was the only one who thinks of routes "peeling away/apart" from another.)

[si404]

I've walked segments to clinch a route, but never walked an entire route.

That needs to happen somewhere in Kentucky on one of those quarter-mile-long routes.

Short helps, obviously, but what I find useful is sidewalks and low traffic speeds - ie in an urban area.

Having spent some time making a subset of my list for just walking, all of them (we'll ignore the A57 in the Peak District where I walked half a mile between two paths as I'm only counting segments as-mapped) have sidewalks and most have a 30mph or lower speed limit.

When the .list file gets processed I'll be able to see the longest route I've fully done on-foot. I'm pretty sure it's the A112 at 14.34 miles. That wasn't done in one go, but rather 3 or 4 trips that weren't exclusively about that one road. I don't believe I've ever been in a vehicle on it either.

And I may have done a segment in Indonesia in a rickshaw (I'm not certain of the route), just as another mode I've used.

I think those should be travel routes in systems to be added, although only really fast trains (175 mph or faster usual travel speed i.e. Eurostar, TGV, ICE, Shinkansen) because they have only a few fixed stops instead of every little whistle stop.

Yes - railways should be added. But why rule out all rail in North America, and an awful lot in other countries, with this HSR-only notion?

Having drafted the UK systems, most of the time the stops work as shaping points and even close together stations in dense city centres are a good 300 yrds apart as a minimum. The only 'little whistle stop' thing I've seen is the Manx Electric Railway - where it's basically a hail and ride tramway, with many stops unofficial ones that became official with the council putting a bus stop pole at the side of the rail. Anything that isn't tram always has stop spacing further apart than visible wpt spacing on nearby surface roads (both being a function of density - in city centres there's more points than in the countryside).

Plus, unlike with roads, it's easier to start with more local networks and then the intercity ones.