Pacheco Pass Highway (SR-152) in California

[geopgeop]

I see a lot of back and forth priority changes for this stretch of road:  http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=55&editids=C7fK-VR4jEUrJlvNcL

It's either National highway or Expressway, and it seems no one can make up their mind as to which it truly is. Can't a consensus be reached here?

[Brandyn Harris]

There are two issues here.  It would be a national highway more if it stretched across the state and/or into other states and was recognized as such.  I would label it an expressway as it travels outside of the city and is thus and "expressway" usually has a higher speed limit that "in city" highways do.  I agree with you though.  Google needs to step in and lock it down.  Anonymous users keep passing the buck back and forth.

-Brandyn

[Geoffrey Perez]

For the argument that it is a national highway (as opposed to regional) the primary purpose is to facilitate traffic from Silicon Valley to the Central Valley/Los Angeles via this route and I-5 (instead of US 101 all the way), and not just simply Gilroy to Los Banos. The same could be said for SR-58 (Bakersfield to Barstow) as it is the preferred route from the Bay Area to Las Vegas.

On Dec 29, 2011 6:44 PM, "Review edits requests on behalf of Brandyn Harris" <map-mod...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

There are two issues here.  It would be a national highway more if it stretched across the state and/or into other states and was recognized as such.  I would label it an expressway as it travels outside of the city and is thus and "expressway" usually has a higher speed limit that "in city" highways do.  I agree with you though.  Google needs to step in and lock it down.  Anonymous users keep passing the buck back and forth.

-Brandyn

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[Geoffrey Perez]

Right now, it's still between NH and Expwy, so let's focus on that.

[Craig Hartel]

I have decided that I don't wish to be in conflict with people about this same thing in my RER area so I'm going to let GRs settle it. In a pure GIS, this would be a road and its attributes would include both "national highway" and "expressway" but this is not a GIS.

[Geoffrey Perez]

Agreed. That's why I posted here instead of deciding on my own. Expressway priority changes are very tough to deal with.

On Dec 29, 2011 7:01 PM, "Review edits requests on behalf of Craig Hartel" <map-mod...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I have decided that I don't wish to be in conflict with people about this same thing in my RER area so I'm going to let GRs settle it. In a pure GIS, this would be a road and its attributes would include both "national highway" and "expressway" but this is not a GIS.

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[Craig Hartel]

Why aren't we simply going by what the government department that is responsible for roads calls it? I know that there are roads that are called "Oceanview Expressway" etc so then the road should be classed as an expressway. Here in BC all highways are the responsibility of one ministry and each of the highways has a specific name and number. However, "expressway", "regional highway" or other attributes are not part of the name or the descriptor. There are only two national highways in Canada - and both have "trans-Canada" in their names.

So, to keep it as simple as possible, if your government entity names a stretch of road and includes "expressway' in the name, then the choice is obvious. I know all the classification nonsense is to allow Google to render roads differently based on this idea of identifiable function, but it is needlessly complicating the process of collecting and managing this information. With the exception of the two trans-Canada highways, any highway that connects to Alberta or Washington/Idaho changes number as soon as it crosses the border, yet I can travel along a stretch of that highway unimpeded from here to the Mexican border, I'm sure. I don't care if I'm on an expressway or regional highway - that is meaningless to me as a driver. I just want to know the name and/or number so I can find it on a map and figure out which route(s) I want to take. Many features are needless complicated like this in GMM and GM.

[biitrix]

I guess we're all wondering what setting the attribute actually does. the help at http://goo.gl/PV0tu sort of, well, helps. But I'd like to hear from an "inside" googler about what each setting "does" rather than us dance around what each one "means". 

[John]

The thing is, government department names aren't always quite right.  Here in NYC, almost every "Expressway" (Long Island, Bruckner, Brooklyn-Queens, Cross-Bronx, etc.) is definitively a Freeway.  Grade separation, Interstate standards, ramps only, long(ish) distance, continues as freeway even after leaving the city, and so forth.  Same with the Southern Tier Expressway, which is being reconfigured and getting the I-86 designation upstate.

In the US, things are generally easy.  Interstates are Freeways, with a few tiny exceptions (I-78's surface streets for a few blocks through the Holland Tunnel toll approach).  US Highways tend to be National Highways, as they're almost always surface roads, even through populated areas.  Of course, when a US Highway designation and runs concurrently with an Interstate (US-1 concurrency with I-95 over the George Washington Bridge, and many other examples nationwide), the higher Freeway priority takes precedence.

Canada's a little more difficult, as there's no true transcontinental freeway system.  TCH roads often have grade intersections.  The good news is that TCH shields seem to give TCH roads the same zoom-level appearance as Freeway, so I think they got that right.

Anyway, long-distance roads that have grade intersections most of the way should be National Highway.  To be an expressway, it should start mixing in grade separation and ramps occasionally.

There's also the bicycle question!  If bikes are allowed, I'm hesitant to go higher than National Highway, as Expressway/Freeway auto-prohibit bikes.

That said, what to do for city sections is murky in the guide.  Some roads elevate priority, but we're generally instructed not to elevate priority through cities (though it depends on who you ask!).

The guide seems to place high emphasis on aesthetics, and their guide has somewhat recently been edited to emphasize that more.  I disagree with Google's priorities there.  We should map what's on the ground, even if it a section that elevates priority in the city, in my opinion (and everyone else's here, it seems).  In turn, if they want aesthetics, Google should find a better way to adjust their rendering.

Anyway, that section of CA-152 looks like it's probably consistent throughout.  I'd say two questions to think about are: (1) Are ramps mixed in with some degree of frequency, and (2) Are bikes allowed?  Answering those might help.  I haven't yet taken a good look at it.

I'm still confused.  I generally don't touch road priorities too often now.  Just when you start to think you understand it, you find another section in which everyone's opinion is valid and correct, for different reasons, and they end up with different conclusions.

[biitrix]

Further to this... National highway renders the same as minor artery. Freeway and Expressway are the "big" roads. If this is for routing purposes then we should be using lanes and speed limits and interchange vs intersection density to calculate priority (kind of a quick/dirty volumetric flow thing). Roads *should* change appearance as they change capacity or we're deliberately presenting a misleading map. I think we could all easily use a "priority" scale from 1 to 10 as long as each was well defined with examples. In theory, that's what the current priority attribute is, but the problem is it uses words, and words have other meaning/nuance that confuse things. Trans-Canada Highway is a national highway (what it *is* = what it *means*), and should have it's name and badge coast-to-coast, but in areas where it's functionally a minor artery (what it *does*) it should render as such and traffic routing rules should consider it as such.

My vote would be to change the priority attribute from using word descriptors in favor of using a number scale. Or better yet, let us enter the # of lanes, speed limit, direction/flow and let the software calculate the segment priorities.

[Craig Hartel]

BINGO!

The information ABOUT a road is far more important than any label we put on it, for any reason. If you look at what is being built in the Lower Mainland of BC, from Surrey all the way to the Iron Workers' Memorial Bridge, you see that roadways are really not that static in nature. They are always evolving to meet current and future needs.

Draw a line - categorise it as a road, and then fill up the attribute fields. Using number of lanes, speed limits, HOV availability, bike lane etc is where the guts of the feature are. Biitrix summed this up quite well.

[John]

Right on, folks!  The system needs some fixing.  I appreciate the effort they made to clarify the help guide so that it better explains why GRs review roads the way they do.  Unfortunately, those reasons don't quite reflect on-the-ground reality, and yes, the terminology can be confusing.  I think at the very least, they should have some section that differentiates how to prioritize roads in populated versus sparse areas, as road configurations do change drastically.  Whatever the answer is, something has to change a bit, otherwise this kind of tug-of-war on priority changes will keep happening, and every time, they'll be correct!

[Wthrwyz]

Totally agree.  People use the map to get somewhere - they want it to reflect reality, not what looks good.

I still think that if Google is concerned about "dangling roads" and consistency so much, then road priority needs to be split into two or more attributes - i.e."design standard/capacity" and "prominence."