Merits of grab bag systems overlapping other systems

[yakra]

Sounds like the idea is to get some "higher functional classification" stuff on the map in blue, to stand out from an indistinct blob of Tier (2/3/)4 systems?

[michih]

The rules are, AFAICS:

Do we have rules on that?

[si404]

Sounds like the idea is to get some "higher functional classification" stuff on the map in blue, to stand out from an indistinct blob of Tier (2/3/)4 systems?

Indeed.

Do we have rules on that?

Not formally codified, but by convention and practice. So yes for me in an English context, no for you in a continental European context.

[michih]

Sounds like the idea is to get some "higher functional classification" stuff on the map in blue, to stand out from an indistinct blob of Tier (2/3/)4 systems?

Indeed.

Do we have rules on that?

Not formally codified, but by convention and practice.

I agree but just wanna say that the practice is only used in regions which are maintained by you or me, and that I cannot remember any larger discussion with other people.

[compdude787]

I understand the reasons why this practice is done, but personally, I'm not sure how useful it is to duplicate routes in a grab bag freeway system that are already in a numbered route system. In the US we don't have separate freeway route files for sections of freeway that are part of state or US routes, even in places like California that have named freeways. Personally, if I was maintaining Australia, I'd find it annoying to have to update two wpt files whenever there is a change to the route.

[vdeane]

I understand the reasons why this practice is done, but personally, I'm not sure how useful it is to duplicate routes in a grab bag freeway system that are already in a numbered route system. In the US we don't have separate freeway route files for sections of freeway that are part of state or US routes, even in places like California that have named freeways. Personally, if I was maintaining Australia, I'd find it annoying to have to update two wpt files whenever there is a change to the route.

Every US jurisdiction with freeways has interstates, though not necessarily signed interstates.  That's not true with Western Australia and Tasmania.  Especially with Western Australia, the absence of motorways likely has more to do with the fact that they haven't converted to alphanumeric than anything else.  In fact, if the unsigned interstates discussion flares up again, I'd hope I remember to reference this thread with respect to Puerto Rico.

[Markkos1992]

I understand the reasons why this practice is done, but personally, I'm not sure how useful it is to duplicate routes in a grab bag freeway system that are already in a numbered route system. In the US we don't have separate freeway route files for sections of freeway that are part of state or US routes, even in places like California that have named freeways. Personally, if I was maintaining Australia, I'd find it annoying to have to update two wpt files whenever there is a change to the route.

Every US jurisdiction with freeways has interstates, though not necessarily signed interstates.  That's not true with Western Australia and Tasmania.  Especially with Western Australia, the absence of motorways likely has more to do with the fact that they haven't converted to alphanumeric than anything else.  In fact, if the unsigned interstates discussion flares up again, I'd hope I remember to reference this thread with respect to Puerto Rico.

My restart of the peer review for Puerto Rico is way past the interstates at this point.  I am waiting on mapcat to find time to go through my comments before continuing it.

Was this an issue with Alaska at some point?

[si404]

Personally, if I was maintaining Australia, I'd find it annoying to have to update two wpt files whenever there is a change to the route.

But you don't maintain Australia. Personally if I maintained NY, I'd want to have the NYST as its a signed, clinchable route. But I lost that argument years ago and accept that.

I'm often having to update two .wpt files whenever there's a change in a route due to concurrencies anyway (eure doesn't help here). And when I was maintaining US states like WY and MT, the concurrencies were so plentiful that more often or not a label change or point reposition required changing two or more files to deal with one roadway and that was before I added the state highways!

It's really little more burden.

[Duke87]

This originally came up in the Australia thread.

Basic question is this: you have a route with a recognized, signed name, possibly in some cases even a unique shield. The named route is entirely concurrent with one or more numbered routes that are accounted for in other systems. Is it worth including the named route in a grab bag system, potentially for the sake of bumping it into a higher tier and adding more color to the map, or allowing greater detail of user stat tracking, in spite of this representing a net addition of zero clinchable mileage to the database?

Within North America (usasf, cansf) the answer as currently implemented is "no". Routes in these systems that are partially concurrent with numbered routes in other systems exist, but all have at least some independent mileage.
Outside of North America, however (aussf as aforementioned, some other places as well), we have named routes in grab bag systems that are 100% concurrent with numbered routes.

So this raises the ancillary question of: do we want to globally harmonize standards on this, or is it okay if it's different in different parts of the world depending on the differing preferences of people drafting and maintaining different regions?
And if we globally harmonize, which option is preferred?

Below are quotes of partial posts relevant from the Australia thread.

all the TAS and WA routes are entirely redundant with routes in ausn, ausa, ausb, or auswa and should be removed

The rules are, AFAICS:

• if the region has a stand-alone tier 1 system, then anything concurrent with other active systems shouldn't be part of the grabbag system.
• if the region doesn't have a stand-alone tier 1 system (unlike any region in USA), then relevant freeways/motorways/whatever that form part of another system can be in a relevant select system. The Nordic Countries and (parts of) the former USSR have seen such an approach. Ditto North Macedonia and New Zealand.

Regarding the inclusion of the WA and TAS routes despite their redundancy in order to show the freeway/motorway sections in a higher tier... I mean, I can see the logic there. But I'm still not a fan from the "reduce unnecessary clutter" perspective. Remember how we were gearing up to kill usaif until we realized it contained a couple short segments not part of other routes.

Still, this is an issue worth letting others chime in on if it's never been broadly properly discussed before.

Remember how we were gearing up to kill usaif until we realized it contained a couple short segments not part of other routes.

Most of that was the whole unsigned thing for a lot of the routes (not the case here), and there's the factor that usaif is a psuedo-grab-bag-esque system in regions with a tier 1 system already.

And the 'we' was 'some contributors' not the entire we. There wasn't agreement on killing the system even before we saw a couple of segments that weren't concurrent with other routes - there was an agreement for getting rid of a lot of the routes due to being unsigned and for not adding more routes, but there remained questions over getting rid of the well signed routes like I-26Fut.

Still, this is an issue worth letting others chime in on if it's never been broadly properly discussed before.

Absolutely.

[michih]

The rules are, AFAICS:

• if the region has a stand-alone tier 1 system, then anything concurrent with other active systems shouldn't be part of the grabbag system.
• if the region doesn't have a stand-alone tier 1 system (unlike any region in USA), then relevant freeways/motorways/whatever that form part of another system can be in a relevant select system. The Nordic Countries and (parts of) the former USSR have seen such an approach. Ditto North Macedonia and New Zealand.

Outside of North America, however (aussf as aforementioned, some other places as well), we have named routes in grab bag systems that are 100% concurrent with numbered routes.

What are grab bag systems?

• "Select" freeway systems: aussf, cannf, chlsf, eursf, mexsf, usansf, usasf
• Other "Select" systems: eurtr, usanp
• Named systems which are (mostly) concurrent to numbered routes, e.g. dnkmot, finmt, ltuaut, mkdap, normot, nzlmot, swemot,...

Which systems are in question now?


In the specific Australian case, I'd consider Australia "as one" and would not put freeway / motorway sections to aussf which are fully concurrent to numbered routes (in HB) just because they are in an (Australian) region where we don't have a numbered motorway.

[vdeane]

I like having these in.  It makes the maps nicer, and allows for more specific statistics.  In the case of the Thruway, it would have been nice to track stats on the mainline and the system (moot now that I've clinched all of it).  I can see a case for most of the major toll roads in the US, as well (except for some cases, like the Indiana Toll Road and Massachusetts Turnpike, both of which are 1:1 the same with the portions of I-90 in those states).

Similarly, I can see a case for the routes in Western Australia, which would almost certainly be M routes if Western Australia converted to alphanumeric (as far as I can tell, it's more a reason of money than anything else).  If Australia didn't have alphanumeric numbers, it would be more like New Zealand.  It's not as if they had an equivalent of the interstate system that became the M routes.  I'm more lukewarm on Tasmania, though - those are less a freeway system and more highways sections hat happen to have interchanges and no at-grades, with most of them being on A routes (and the remainder on national route 1, which would probably be an A route if alphanumerics had been thought of in the rest of Australia at the time; Tasmania converted a decade or two before everyone else and had federal pushback on route 1).

Likewise, were the unsigned interstates to go away, I'd desire a freeway system for Puerto Rico (I'd say Autopista, but many of them are Expresos for some reason, and at least on road marked "expreso" on Google Maps isn't a freeway).  Maybe the freeway sections of the Seward and Glenn Highways in Alaska as well, though there's a case to be made that they might be like the sections in Tasmania (though they're longer and don't have the A route/M route distinction).

[oscar]

Likewise, were the unsigned interstates to go away, I'd desire a freeway system for Puerto Rico (I'd say Autopista, but many of them are Expresos for some reason, and at least on road marked "expreso" on Google Maps isn't a freeway).  Maybe the freeway sections of the Seward and Glenn Highways in Alaska as well, though there's a case to be made that they might be like the sections in Tasmania (though they're longer and don't have the A route/M route distinction).

Aren't all of Puerto Rico's autopistas/freeways (the real ones. not any imagined by Google Maps) included in usapr, currently in/awaiting peer review?

As for Alaska, one complication is that the Parks Highway (Interstate A-4/AK 3) includes freeway segments at both ends, with the south end picking up where the Glenn Highway freeway ends, and the north end connecting to freeway segments of AK 2 (north end of the Richardson Highway, and the Steese Expressway). Anyway, that state is not a special case for creating a freeway system for routes already in the HB. If you don't want a system including both freeways and unpaved highways (much more of the latter in Alaska), too bad, though at least the Alaska part of usai has lots of non-freeway segments but nothing unpaved.

Color me skeptical about completely duplicative freeway-only systems.

[Duke87]

What are grab bag systems?

For the purpose of this discussion, anything "Select" (freeway or otherwise), since the debate here hinges on the "select" nature permitting us to omit routes that fit the description but are redundant.

If the system is not "select", then we're not omitting any signed routes from it so this issue doesn't apply.

[michih]

Aren't all of Puerto Rico's autopistas/freeways included in usapr

Well, that's exactly the point of the discussion. Do we want to highlight them on mapview, or not?

What are grab bag systems?

For the purpose of this discussion, anything "Select" (freeway or otherwise), since the debate here hinges on the "select" nature permitting us to omit routes that fit the description but are redundant.

Thanks. I have no strong feeling on that but tend to make the systems "complete" like we did for Norway, Finland,.... category 3 of my list above (based on "motorway start/end" signs), or don't highlight them if that's not possible.

If the system is not "select", then we're not omitting any signed routes from it so this issue doesn't apply.

Ok, I didn't get that from the discussion before.

[oscar]

Aren't all of Puerto Rico's autopistas/freeways included in usapr

Well, that's exactly the point of the discussion. Do we want to highlight them on mapview, or not?

Does that means creating and maintaining duplicate route files limited to freeway segments? ISTM that'd be more hassle for maintainers of states with aggressive freeway upgrade programs (North Carolina and Iowa come to mind), who would need to not only track the upgrades, even the ones improving but not realigning originally non-freeway segments, but also any make later changes affecting freeway segments in more route files.