usaca: California State Highways

[oscar]

Prior discussion of this in-dev system is on the AARoads forum at http://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=16761.0  Links to the route files (some very rough) in the system are at http://tm.teresco.org/devel/hb.php?sys=usaca

Current status: I just finished updates of all the state's Interstate and US routes. As I munch through the state routes to update them, I can copy revised waypoints from the updated I- and US routes to synch them with the state routes. I've already done this with CA 299, a major route where I've done the kind of updating that will be done for other state routes.

First, though, two steps before I turn to revising the state routes, and getting them ready for review:

-- Replacing the placeholder files for some of the routes added to the draft system that was in CHM, including CA 59 and a bunch of business routes I found. The placeholders map to a short route in a Russian city, which is good to flag their "placeholder" status but creates other issues such as a map of usaca routes that reaches to the other side of the globe. So I'll replace them with real route files.

-- Figuring out how to deal with relinquishments, a discussion started at AARoads. This gives me headaches every time I dive into it, to work out a consistent approach on how to treat them. Complicating this is the disappearance, for some of the older relinquishments, of the continuation signage local jurisdictions were supposed to maintain on the roads they took over from CalTrans (the presence of such signage was something I thought might justify ignoring most of the relinquishments).

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Here's a partial summary including links. etc. for the sources I'm using for this system and for maintaining already-active Interstate and US routes in CA, besides the usual resources applicable to other U.S. and non-U.S. jurisdictions such as OSM and Google Maps Street View. This list can be moved into a replacement for the Sources and Links page on the CHM website.

Daniel Faigin's California Highways hobbyist site

AARoads California Roads and Highways pages

AARoads Interstate Business Route Guide (includes both California and other states)

California Streets and Highways Code sections 300-635 (legislative route definitions, and authorized relinquishments to local governments)

Caltrans' California Log of Bridges on State Highways (2015, includes some of the information from the old paper-only highway logs)

Caltrans' California State Highways Logs for districts 1-12 (paper only, 2002 version which is the latest available)

Caltrans' Cal-NExUS (California Numbered Exit Uniform System) freeway exit lists

Caltrans' State Highway System Signing Log (from 1991, seriously outdated, but may be latest and only complete list of business routes, so it's better than nothing -- as you might gather, Caltrans isn't real consistent about putting information online or keeping it current)

Caltrans' Transportation Concept Reports (detailed route descriptions, though coverage is incomplete, and some reports are incomplete or outdated)

Coordinates from my handheld GPS receiver (will be used in rare instances where open-source online maps do not accurately show route ends or intersection locations)

[oscar]

My latest pull request should have (I'll need to double-check) replaced all the route set's "placeholder" files with real route files. That means the route set can be mapped, without having the map veer off into St. Petersburg, Russia.

This was one issue that had ruled out moving usaca from in-dev to preview status. But I wouldn't do that just yet. There are still major routes requiring reroutes or other significant work, as well as lesser routes needing various levels of polish-up. Also, I need to work out how to deal with route relinquishments, though I've already truncated the routes (like CA 14U and CA 54) that most clearly needed to be shortened. To my mind, usaca shouldn't graduate to preview status until it's ready for peer review, which it isn't.

[oscar]

I'm still gradually updating the existing route files. But a note on my overhaul of the most "heavyweight" route file in usaca and maybe in all of TM, for the 700-mi+ and often curvy CA 1 coastal route:

Old file: 48.6K, with 735 waypoints (448 visible, 287 hidden)
Svelte new file: 24.6K, with 369 waypoints (330 visible, 39 hidden)

Once I get the new file uploaded (still trying to fix my GitHub setup), it will definitely lose the heavyweight route file title. New leader might be the main BC BC97 route file, at about 42K for a 1300-mi+ route (not counting the northern end which zigzags several times into and out of Yukon Territory).

[rschen7754]

Was CA 259 removed?

[oscar]

Was CA 259 removed?

Yes, as unsigned except as "To CA 210" or "To I-215" (callbox codes and postmiles not enough for our purposes). I checked it out pretty thoroughly when I was out there in February, in hopes of hanging on to it, but no joy.

[rickmastfan67]

All the exit numbers that we currently have all the way up to 5 need to be reentered.  Exit numbering starts @ 2, not 1 since it's exit numbers continue from I-980 mileage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_24

[NickCPDX]

Any updates on this?

[rschen7754]

While I'm thinking about it, I'm sure https://postmile.dot.ca.gov/ would be of some help.

[oscar]

While I'm thinking about it, I'm sure https://postmile.dot.ca.gov/ would be of some help.

I haven't yet used the Postmile Query Tool, but it seems to be a useful supplement to the old 2002 paper route logs, and the more recent online bridge logs (more up-to-date, but less complete, than the paper logs). It might be especially useful for any new or extended state routes, though lately Caltrans has been shedding mileage much more rapidly than adding new mileage.

Next step -- and possibly the main thing to be done before getting the system to "preview" status where users can at least tentatively map their travels -- is getting on top of all the recent partial route relinquishments, and developing an approach to dealing with them that minimizes chopping up routes into little pieces, so we can more or less settle what gets mapped in TM. That is a headache, especially since local jurisdictions that are supposed to maintain continuation signage when they take over relinquished route segments, often don't. Now that my own extensive travels are winding down for this year, I'll have more time to resume work on that.

[Bickendan]

While I'm thinking on this, I can understand why CA 259 got removed from the project, but if I may argue for its inclusion on the basis it has its own independent exit (Highland Ave), I would.

[bhemphill]

One thing that you could do for those relinquished sections would be to just have points on either end of the relinquishment.  I know it isn't conventional, but for those towns/cities that don't maintain the signage it keeps anyone from having to basically look at the mapping site for the route before or while they are traversing through to be able to say good enough for a clinch as long as they come out in the right place on the other end.  Then a traveler doesn't have to worry about if they missed a block or turn and you don't have to worry about if roads are cut off or turned into one ways.

It almost would be nice if there was the idea that Jeff had about being able to minus a road segment so that it wouldn't be mapped, or counted in stats.  Changing the file structure to have a - in front of a road segment would be easy.  Coming up with the code and logic on the back end to implement it is what would be the hard part.

[Bickendan]

One thing that you could do for those relinquished sections would be to just have points on either end of the relinquishment.  I know it isn't conventional, but for those towns/cities that don't maintain the signage it keeps anyone from having to basically look at the mapping site for the route before or while they are traversing through to be able to say good enough for a clinch as long as they come out in the right place on the other end.  Then a traveler doesn't have to worry about if they missed a block or turn and you don't have to worry about if roads are cut off or turned into one ways.

It almost would be nice if there was the idea that Jeff had about being able to minus a road segment so that it wouldn't be mapped, or counted in stats.  Changing the file structure to have a - in front of a road segment would be easy.  Coming up with the code and logic on the back end to implement it is what would be the hard part.

If I'm reading this right, you're suggesting using clinch points at the nearest major intersection outside the town the highway's relinquished in, and no clinch points at all within said town, only shape points as needed?

[bhemphill]

One thing that you could do for those relinquished sections would be to just have points on either end of the relinquishment.  I know it isn't conventional, but for those towns/cities that don't maintain the signage it keeps anyone from having to basically look at the mapping site for the route before or while they are traversing through to be able to say good enough for a clinch as long as they come out in the right place on the other end.  Then a traveler doesn't have to worry about if they missed a block or turn and you don't have to worry about if roads are cut off or turned into one ways.

It almost would be nice if there was the idea that Jeff had about being able to minus a road segment so that it wouldn't be mapped, or counted in stats.  Changing the file structure to have a - in front of a road segment would be easy.  Coming up with the code and logic on the back end to implement it is what would be the hard part.

If I'm reading this right, you're suggesting using clinch points at the nearest major intersection outside the town the highway's relinquished in, and no clinch points at all within said town, only shape points as needed?

That is one way it could be implemented.  I kind of left the exactly how to implement it up to the system contributors, like you.  You could use the first intersection inside the limits if that was preferred.  Or you could be more exacting that the route ends at the city limits and use that as a point, I know more outside the box thinking since nobody can turn there but is how other states may have a state route start/end although it doesn't appear on the other side of town for them most of the time.

Then if you want to have shape points you could to be more traditional and make the route look like it goes through town purposefully.  If you wanted to be more out of box thinking however you could not have them, which may look strange if a line crosses town not seeming to follow any particular path.  It really isn't much different from some curvy/turning route through a town that doesn't use any/many shape points or intersection waypoints somewhere else that is already mapped visually though.  That could be confusing to a user though trying to figure out how to get across town too.

Just trying to throw an idea out there, maybe it is helpful maybe it isn't, but it may trigger that "Why didn't I think of that?" moment of some slightly different implementation/idea.

[Jim]

A feature that might be useful here would be to allow points in separate .wpt files that are "connected up" in a _con.csv entry to be used for starting and ending points of a segment in a user list.  I've always thought it would make sense to be able to say I traveled all of I-90 by listing a waypoint in Boston and an endpoint in Seattle.  That takes some work, both in resolving conflicting labels and in augmenting the code that marks segments as traveled for a user, but I think it's doable (next summer) if it's a priority.  However, to date the _con.csv has only been used to connect up a single route that crosses regions.  Here, we seem to be talking about bringing together discontiguous segments that have the same designation, and in some sense form a single route, albeit with gaps.

[Bickendan]

While that would make sense for CA 1, I don't think it would for say, the Dakotas' 1804 and 1806, which are physically discontinuous as opposed to victims of relinquishments and signing apathy.