To approve or not changes from "National Highway" etc to "Freeway

[Jason Low]

Hi folks,

There's a fellow who I'm not sure if is local or not to my area who is going through and editing all the high-speed roads in the area to Freeway designation. These roads have previously been marked National Highway (even if they are not a national highway) and when I tried to submit edits in the past to change them from National Highway to something else, they were vetoed by a Google employee stating that National Highways would not be changed, at all.

I'm trying to do reviews for the stuff in my area as I am very familiar with the region and have a ton of local knowledge to share, but this particular situation has me somewhat stumped. I looked up a few discussions in the community regarding the difference between expressways and freeways, and got no straight answers. By the official definitions, only one road in Alberta is a freeway, and that is Highway 2 between Calgary and Edmonton. All other controlled-access routes would be Expressways. There are two routes which would qualify as National Highway (Highway 1 from the SK-AB border to the AB-BC border, and Highway 16 along the same route), and there are many other highways which are listed as National Highway, etc., which really aren't (they're more Regional in nature, connecting one town to another or running along the length/width of the province).

So I'm looking for some advice, if not to provide this GMM user with in a review, then for my own edification for future edits of my own or reviews.

Thanks much in advance.

[Flash]

National highway does not have to be designated as such by the local government; that would mean that the definition would change from country to country.

National highway one of the three highest designation given to roads; and basically refers to those roads that span large distances and connect cities.  So, without reviewing them myself, it sounds from your description that those are right.

Expressway and Freeway are technically higher, but a better way to think of it is that they are National Highways that are built to a higher standard.  That is, all three serve the same purpose; they are high priority roads that span large distances and connect major cities; but Expressways and Freeways have additions like dual carriage ways and higher levels of controlled access in order to make them safer for higher speeds.

Explain to the mapper that we never set the road priority based on one aspect alone; as it sounds like he is concentrating on speed.  We look at all of the aspects, and weigh each of them.  The weights are not equal, and might be different for different priorities and areas..  In western Canada, the priorities often do not match the speeds in the guidelines simply because our laws here tend to set road speeds at a different priority than a lot of other countries.  More important is what they connect to, the distances they span, etc. (Now when I say we don't look at one aspect, you must remember that you definitely have to have the right level of controlled access before they can be Expressway or Freeway.  If you don't have that, then it is National Highway or below.  But just being built to freeway standards is not enough to assign it Freeway priority, it must span large distances and connect cities just like the National Highway priority below it).

[Kingston-Mapper]

From my understanding of Alberta's roads, a lot of them (including the Trans-Canada) are simply divided roads with no controlled access, i.e. interchanges. My understanding of the priorities is that divided roads with at-grade intersections are not appropriate for Expressway or Freeway priority.

[Wthrwyz]

You are correct, Kingston-Mapper. Simply being a divided highway is not enough to be classified as an Expressway. Expressways should have most, if not all, of the following characteristics:

• Connectivity: These are roads that provide connectivity between major points in the highway network. They may not necessarily go from one major city to another, but they will either serve as the backbone of the transportation grid in an area or as a connector between other high-priority corridors. They often run through rural or mountainous areas where a major road is needed to carry traffic, but it is cost-prohibitive to build a full Freeway-grade road. If a road does not end at another road that is Expressway or higher, then it probably doesn't serve the purpose intended by the Expressway designation, even if it is built to a high standard.
  
• Cross Traffic: Unlike Freeways, Expressways may have at-grade crossings with low-traffic roads. However, since the goal of an Expressway is to keep through-traffic moving freely, any intersections should be widely-spaced, well-marked with good visibility, and generally should not be equipped with traffic signals. Crossings with high-priority routes should be handled with interchanges.
  
• Controlled Access: Access control does not necessarily mean grade-separated interchanges and overpasses although those are part of the puzzle. Access control refers to whether access is allowed at any point or only at designated major crossings. Take a look at whether adjacent businesses and residences are allowed to have direct access to the road; if a divided highway has many driveways and side roads branching off from it, then it isn't an expressway - there will be too much cross-traffic for it to qualify.
• Speed: Speed limits should be about the same as or just below Freeway speeds for the area in which the road is located. While speed limits do vary from region to region, one would expect an Expressway to have a legal limit of at least 55 MPH (90 km/h).
• Design Standards: Like Freeways, Expressways will usually have full hard shoulders and either a wide median or reinforced barrier separating opposing traffic. Steep grades and tight corners will be kept to a minimum.
• Big Picture: As with all priority designations, a road should not change priority in rapid succession. Most roads should maintain a single priority for their entire length. Some longer roads may change once or twice but those changes should come only at crossings with other high-priority roads and the segments of varying priority should be significant in length. If you zoom out a few notches and the road looks like it has zebra stripes, then something is wrong. If the road does not maintain Expressway attributes over its entire length, then it probably isn't an Expressway.

The bottom line here is that Expressways have almost the same visibility on the map as Freeways. They are the routes primarily used by long-distance traffic, so they should only be marked if they are able to serve that purpose.

[Kingston-Mapper]

This makes me wonder about Highway 11 in Ontario, between Barrie and North Bay. As of Fall 2012 the entire highway is now divided for its entire length between the two cities, but I have to wonder about how the priorities should be set there. Right now it is set up as follows:

• Barrie to south of Orillia - National Highway. This section is divided with no possibility of crossing the median, and has a speed of 90 km/h, however it has numerous at-grade intersections for access to businesses, private residences, and low-priority roads.
• Orillia Bypass - Freeway. Only accessible by interchanges.
• North of Orillia to Gravenhurst - National Highway. Same situation as the Barrie-Orillia section.
• Gravenhurst to North Bay - Expressway. Accessible by both interchanges and a few at-grade intersections at minor roads. There are a few residences and businesses along there, but not very many.

There are four distinct priority sections over this space. The National Highway and Expressway sections seem correct to me. However, should the Orillia Bypass section, which is only a few kilometres long, be a Freeway priority? It does cross the length of the city.

[Flash]

I would have to say that Orillia really isn't a city per say, but rather a village or town.  This section isn't long enough to change the priority, the consistency rule would apply here.

Don't forget that the guidelines state that most high priority roads have already been looked at and don't need modification.  It's always possible that you'll find something that was missed; but in general anything high priority will have already had multiple volunteers and Google employees pour over it.

[Kingston-Mapper]

I've also always thought that the priorities need a second look by people on the ground who drive the roads every day, in addition to the staff in Mountain View, CA. I've talked with one former Map Maker user who said the priorities were "horribly" executed by Google in his home city, and had to be completely redone by local users including himself.

[Saikrishna Arcot]

It may be that countries with poor data need to have priorities reviewed, but I wold think that Canada should, for the most part, have road priorities set correctly. The possible exception is with Minor/Major Arteries. In my area, there were hardly any Major Arteries before nobody changed many to Major Artery.

[Wthrwyz]

Yeah, for the most part the US and Canada have very mature map data and the high-priority roads (National Highway and above) should not need much tweaking. Where you will find exceptions to that rule will be areas of new construction or major projects to upgrade existing corridors. In those cases it should not take much to get them approved, as such projects are usually well documented by the local authority.

I will agree however that there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially when it comes to lower-priority roads. Major highways are usually well-documented at both the state/province and national levels. When you get down into streets and road maintained by small localities, that is where Google's base data can be missing, inaccurate, or just incomplete.

[Titus Lee]

Access should be the determining factor in prioritizing freeways & expressways.

Why can't they get this right?

[Wthrwyz]

@Titus Lee: There is no single determining factor when it comes to priority - that's the whole point of this discussion. If access were the determining factor then we would be marking freeway/expressway on bypasses around every little town, village, or hamlet on the map that happens to have an interchange. Such simply is not appropriate and it would begin to look stupid. All Freeways may be divided highways, but not all divided highways are Freeways; consistency, distance, speed, and the road's purpose within the transit network all must be considered and none of these aspects should be viewed in isolation.

As for your example, based on the satellite imagery (which I do realize is outdated) and Street View, I'd classify that as an Expressway, and even that's pushing the envelope. The design standard seems sub-par for a modern Freeway - it looks like they've converted what used to be a surface street into a limited-access corridor, but they haven't done much to deal with the issues of lane width, turn radius and sight distance. If the road had wider shoulders and medians, better alignment, and/or a higher speed limit, I'd vote for Freeway, but as it appears now and not having driven the road personally, I would need more information before I would consider anything above Expressway.

[Titus Lee]

Sorry, my point was incomplete.

Controlled/limited-access sets apart roads which already meet Regional/National highway standards as Expressways/Freeways.

The example I mentioned earlier http://goo.gl/maps/IXI0A is no cowpath, but a 6-lane, controlled-access National Highway.

On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 2:11 PM, Wthrwyz via General Map Maker <google-mapmaker+noreply-APn2wQcD...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

@Titus Lee: There is no single determining factor when it comes to priority - that's the whole point of this discussion. If access were the determining factor then we would be marking freeway/expressway on bypasses around every little town, village, or hamlet on the map that happens to have an interchange. Such simply is not appropriate and it would begin to look stupid. All Freeways may be divided highways, but not all divided highways are Freeways; consistency, distance, speed, and the road's purpose within the transit network all must be considered and none of these aspects should be viewed in isolation.

As for your example, based on the satellite imagery (which I do realize is outdated) and Street View, I'd classify that as an Expressway, and even that's pushing the envelope. The design standard seems sub-par for a modern Freeway - it looks like they've converted what used to be a surface street into a limited-access corridor, but they haven't done much to deal with the issues of lane width, turn radius and sight distance. If the road had wider shoulders and medians, better alignment, and/or a higher speed limit, I'd vote for Freeway, but as it appears now and not having driven the road personally, I would need more information before I would consider anything above Expressway.

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[Flash]

Controlled/limited-access sets apart roads which already meet Regional/National highway standards as Expressways/Freeways.

Regional and National are not the same.  It must meet National highway standards to be considered for a freeway or expressway.

 

The example I mentioned earlier http://goo.gl/maps/IXI0A is no cowpath, but a 6-lane, controlled-access National Highway.

You are looking at the build only.  This is a major artery through farmland, and only qualifies as a major artery due to the lesser requirements when passing through a rural area; then as it enters the city is bumped up to regional highway; and then in the middle of the city you keep attempting to bump it up to freeway.  This is the sort of inconsistency that is to be avoided.  In addition, you should not have a freeway or expressway terminate at a regional highway or lower.  I'll admit that this is an unusual situation in that it goes in build from a local road standard to a freeway standard, so the priority should be raised somewhat; but Dewey and Pierce have reset it down to National Highway multiple times,  a priority which can be supported as it is then a national highway terminating at a regional highway, which is probably what they are using to justify even that high of a priority.  If the GRs that specialize in western Canada keep putting it to that priority, then I would suggest you enter into a dialogue with them and find out why.  Both of those guys will answer any inquiries.