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Tim's PA Road Characterizing Tips

Step-by-step

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS - LINKS TO WIKI AND FORUM WILL BE ADDED LATER.

When you go to a new area that has not been touched by a Waze editor, here are some tips.

Decide whether to keep the road (or delete it)
Decide the whether to promote it (or demote it)
If the road is essentially straight between start and end nodes, remove the minor nodes.
Adjust the end nodes (do this after straightening)
Set the road direction (one way vs. two way)
Set/unset turn restrictions

Deleting roads

You'll find many roads on the map that really don't belong there. Many of these were added in the original Waze base maps. Unfortunately, many should be deleted instead of cleaned up, and some editors erroneously spend time trying to fix them. Here are some things to consider when deleting a road. When in doubt, be cautious and keep the roads around (and ask the opinion of more experienced Waze editors via chat, forum, etc).

Characteristics of roads to delete:

often have the state listed as "New York" even though they're in Pennsylvania
road direction is "unknown"
the start and end nodes do not match anything on the satellite picture, or are significantly shifted
no road name
sometimes the roads are just a squiggle leaving a main road and going into the woods
the road only connects to one house (ie, a short or long driveway)
the road would not help Waze users to "get somewhere"

Characteristics of roads to fix:

the road ultimately connects two different roads
the road is a dead-end, but the road is shared by two or more dwellings
the road would support the Waze mission of getting drivers somewhere

For example, a road that leads to a theme park could help a lot of Waze users get somewhere, even though it doesn't fit the first two categories. Conversely, most people do not need Waze to navigate up their driveway.

Demoting Roads

If you find an alley or a road that goes to one dwelling (ie, a driveway), the road should be changed from default "Street" to type "Private Road". Alley's are often found in the center of big cities or the older sections of towns. In many cases, you'll find that the city streets are laid out in rectangles with narrow alleys providing internal access in the block to garages at the rear of the dwellings. Use Street View (drag the magnifying glass under the zoom bar to the place of interest) to see what the road really looks like.

The easiest way to find the alleys in a city is to turn off the Waze roads (Shift-R) so that you can see the widths of the roads. Look for the rectangular grid of major roads in the city or town and see if there are narrow roads leading to the interiors.

Characteristics of alleys:

should be narrower than the normal adjacent roads
generally not have the fronts of houses facing them
often have garages on both sides
often wide enough for one car width only
might have a road name ending "Alley"

Ask yourself, "would you want Waze to send you someplace via this road, or the next major road over?" If the road is narrow, you'd do better to discourage the Waze router from sending people over this road (this is a complaint about Waze in some public forums and it starts with not categorizing roads correctly).

With the road visibility turned off in the editor, you can still click on the alleys and demote them (ie, retype them as "Private Road" instead of "Street") by selecting them with the cursor (the underlying road gets focus) and then changing the road type from Street to Private Road.

One of the best ways to see how alley's are setup in Waze is to install the Color Highlighter and set road type colorize to "Private Road". You'll then see purple lines for all Private Roads. Try finding some nearby cities (even if you can't edit them) and see how others have decided which roads to label as Private Roads.

PA Federal Classification vs. Waze

Waze is in the process of implementing the Functional Classification types in Waze. This means that waze editors need to label PA roads according to the following:

The PA Functional Classification category as found on the PA FC maps here
The PA State Road maps here
Specific rules on PA road classification on the PA Wiki Standards here
Local knowledge and other information described on the USA Wiki Standards here

When there is a difference in information, you will generally pick the higher highway category (ie, the bigger and faster type). For example, if the PA State map shows a road is 4-digit State Route, but it's not shown in the PA Functional Classification map, it would still be shown as a Primary Street (per PA Wiki Standards). On the other hand, the PA FC map will often promote roads beyond Primary Street based on the road's use.

Notes on FCU state vs. Waze

The color codes used on the PA FC maps use a different color code compared to those used in the Waze Map Editor. The following table is for reference with map FC name followed by Waze name:

State Route 4 digit (not special in FC) (orange) - Primary Street (orange)
Minor Collector (yellow) - Primary Street (orange)
Major Collector (purple) - Primary Street (orange)

Minor Arterial (green) - Minor Highway (yellow)

Principle Arterial (red) - Major Highway (red)
Other Freeways (cinnamon) - Freeway (blue) or Highway (red)
Interstate (cyan) - Freeway (blue)

Determining Road Directions

Many times you will find that the Waze map has incorrect road directions. In some cases, these are roads with unknown directions, or roads that the Waze routing engine has only observed people traveling in one direction (so far) and labeled them as one-way. A Waze editor can often determine the roads actual direction restrictions from clues.

From satellite images:

might have road markings showing turn arrows in both lanes, or other road restrictions
might show visible cars only moving in one direction
might show cars parked on the left side of the road parked in the "wrong" direction

From Waze Map Editor:

turning on the GPS arrows (upper right pulldown) shows cars only moving in one direction suggests it's one-way

From Street View:

"One Way" and "Do Not Enter" signs visible while traversing the road
cars parked on the left side facing the "wrong way"
street signs (like parking signs) on the left side facing the "wrong way"
stop signs (can confirm that traffic *is* allowed in a particular direction and the road is not one-way)

Note that a dead end street (cul-de-sac) will generally always be two way (unless it's a road from a factory that produces cars or a junk yard that consumes them!)

Cpttim can be reached by private message.

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