Roadside Park Consistency
Michigan has 80+ MDOT-maintained roadside parks, spanning both the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. They are found on state and US highways, and typically are seasonal, open Apr-Nov. Usually found at a scenic natural feature, they can provide parking, toilet facilites, and picnic areas. These are not Rest Areas(see the Rest Area wiki page). The State of Michigan maintains a list of MDOT roadside parks here, and on the MiDrive map.
Place Categories
- Park (under Outdoors) should be set as the primary category.
- Rest Area/Scenic Overlook (under Outdoors) can be set a secondary category, if the park has scenic features.
- This category result is triggered anytime a Wazer searches for the words
Rest stop, orRest area, therefore to ensure roadside parks are not mistaken for rest areas, this category should not be primary.
Naming Standards
The standardized name format has been optimized for both instant and regular search results.
- The name begins with "Roadside Park" to facilitate the instant search results, which are based on the first words of the search term.
- The name of the park comes next in the place's name, following a hyphen (-). The proper name is the official MDOT name, found in the links in the opening paragraph.
- Because many roadside parks are seasonal, during the off-season, the term "(CLOSED FOR SEASON)" should be at the end, and be removed for the on-season. Please use the linked Google sheet for tracking the inclusion and removal of this term.
- Example: "Roadside Park - Lake Superior (CLOSED FOR SEASON)"
Other Guidelines
- If the park has 2 entrances (e.i. a loop), the PLR should be broken into 4 segments, and locked at __. This is to avoid confusing routing instructions when the park is routed as an intermediate stop. Example: Traveling on M-28, user receives instruction when entering the park, "Turn right on M-28".
- Follow all other guidelines for Places.