User:BLKTRUC/USA Road Types - 06-2020 Wiki Update Proposal

=== Highways ===

A highway is an arterial road.

Highways roads are the backbone of the traffic network. They serve a dual purpose:

• to carry traffic over long distances, from one city to another, and
• to carry traffic from collector roads to freeways, where applicable.

Streets

The Street types are for local and short-distance travel. Street types are used at the beginning and end of long routes as well.

Primary Street           

Collectors are roads used with medium-low traffic densities which are used to bring traffic from local streets to arterials and vice versa. Collectors are classified in Waze as Primary Streets.

Some states designate county routes which are important for travel within a county. These routes serve important functions in a short-distance capacity.

The following roads are to be classified, at minimum, as  Primary Street :

• Roads classified in FHWA's functional classification as Major Collectors or Minor Collectors and paved with a hard surface.
• In some jurisdictions (check local guidance), signed, numbered county routes (and, in Louisiana, parish routes) paved with a hard surface. EXISTING TEXT TO REPLACE>Signed, numbered county routes (and, in Louisiana, parish routes) paved with a hard surface.
• Business (BUS) and Loop state highways, and Spur state highways which are not used as connectors, paved with a hard surface.
• Frontage roads which serve as the means of access between freeways/expressways and surface streets, if not otherwise classified.
  • Some functional classification maps are not produced in high enough detail to determine the class of frontage roads. On maps that are produced in high detail, frontage roads are almost universally classified as Major Collectors or higher.

Unpaved roads – including gravel, macadam, and dirt roads – are considered on a regional basis. Check your state page or contact your regional coordinator.

Note: Some states or counties may designate county routes differently than others. Check your state's page for possible exceptions to this rule.

As stated above, frontage roads should generally be set to at least  Primary Street , if not marked as a higher type on a functional class map.

Many frontage roads are used as "feeder roads" or "access roads", often the primary or only means of entering and exiting a freeway. Setting these to the "street" type, as has been done in the past, has the potential to invalidate good routes which use freeways and major/minor highways. To ensure that routing works, always use at least "primary street" for frontage roads that are used in this way. It may be desirable to set the entire frontage road to the same type to achieve a more contiguous map appearance.

Street           

The following roads are to be classified, at minimum, as  Street :

existing text to be replaced Any road for public travel which does not meet the criteria for any other type shall be classified as a  Street . Shown as "local roads" in some functional classification maps; not shown at all in others.

new text replacing the above

• Any road for public travel which does not meet the criteria for any other type. These roads are shown as "local roads in some functional classifications maps; and not shown at all in others.
• In some jurisdictions (check local guidance), signed, numbered county routes (and, in Louisiana, parish routes) paved with a hard surface.

Passageway

As of October 31, 2018 (2018-10-31), the new road type  Passageway  should not be used in the USA. This road type is designed for other parts of the world, where some public roads Yellow only vehicles narrower than cars. At this time, DO NOT use the  Passageway  road type in the USA without explicit champ approval for each instance.

Service Road

The Service Road type is no longer available. Use other road types for service roads.

For guidance on mapping service roads AKA frontage roads, see the service road page and the section above.

Quick reference chart

Refer to this chart to determine the road type of a given paved public road based on the functional class.

To use this chart, first determine the functional class of a road, and whether it is a signed, numbered highway in a particular highway system.

Where the column for the road's highway system and the row for the road's functional class meet, you will find the proper road type for that particular road.

A number of examples are given below the chart.

		Highway Systems
		Interstate	Interstate Business Loop/Spur	US Hwy (incl. some special routes)	US Hwy BUS, SPUR, LOOP	State Hwy (incl. some special routes)	State Hwy BUS, SPUR, LOOP	County Route	Locally-maintained
	example	I-10 E	I-94 Business	US-190	US-460 Business	SR-23	SR-400 Loop	CR-15	Robertson St
F u n c t i o n a l C l a s s	Interstate	Fw	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
	Other Freeway	n/a	Fw	Fw	Fw	Fw	Fw	Fw	Fw
	Other Expressway	n/a	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major
	Other Principal Arterial	n/a	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major
	Minor Arterial	n/a	Major	Major	Minor	Minor	Minor	Minor	Minor
	Major Collector	n/a	Major	Major	Minor	Minor	PS	PS	PS
	Minor Collector	n/a	Major	Major	Minor	Minor	PS	PS	PS
	Local/not mapped	n/a	Major	Major	Minor	Minor	PS	PS  Street  Check Local Guidance	Street

^a When a state highway "SPUR" route is used to connect a state highway with another state highway, a US highway, or an Interstate (i.e., when it is used as a connector/CONN route), use the first state highway column.

^b Also known as Principal Arterial - Interstate.

^c Also known as Principal Arterial - Freeway.

^d Also known as Principal Arterial - Expressway.

^e Also known as Principal Arterial.

^f Also known as Other Arterial.