Many counties in Indiana use a simple grid system to name roads rather than giving actual names. The only constant in the grid pattern is that the numbers which are an even multiple of 100 usually fall on whole mile intervals. Counties do not always follow the same grid conventions. Some counties begin the grid in one corner and number out from there. Some counties continue the numbering from an adjacent county. Some counties identify a central point and radiate out from the central point. Regardless of the how a county chooses, the pattern has 3 parts like this:
- {N/S/E/W}
- Co Rd ###, or some similar variant
- {N/S/E/W}
For (1) - the first cardinal direction - it may or may not be present on the GIS base map. If it is, it must be preserved for proper address resolution. The primary name can omit the cardinal, but it must then be present as an alt name.
For (2) - the number would be formatted with the CR for County road/route as: CR-###
For (3) - the cardinal {N/S/E/W} is always preserved as part of the "name"
Standard naming of something like:
"Co Rd 400 N"
Would become:
CR-400 N
or: "E 100 N"
to: "E CR-100 N"
In this case, if the initial cardinal is not prominently displayed on the LGS, it is possible that the transformation should be:
Primary: CR-100 N
Alt Name: E CR-100 N
It is important to note that the initial cardinal direction is always significant to waze address resolution for any road. Many towns have an E/W and/or N/S dividing line for address numbers and without that initial cardinal, a simple street number is ambiguous and will likely cause routing errors. It is also possible that the same road on a county border will be known by 2 different county road numbers. The usual advice is to follow what the driver sees - so the choice of which to use as primary versus alt name may be based on signs at an intersection. Again it is important that both be preserved in either primary or alt names.