Puerto Rico/Major roads/Main

Functional Classification

Puerto Rico does not participate or use the US Functional Classification system. See the Road Shields section below for local information regarding shields & classification.

• All freeways are set to ground level. If two freeways cross each other, look at the actual intersection to discover the layers of the intersection.
• Elevation -5 is used for non-drivable roads to help ensure that the routing engine does not try to connect or route drivers from roads onto non-roads by mistake. It acts to prevent false system reporting that the roads should be connected.
• Road names should follow the PR-### format and a general rule of thumb is:

• PR-1 through PR-99 & PR-165 are Major Highways (those with Pink Shields are Freeways)
• PR-100 through PR-206, PR-250 & PR-251 are Minor Highways
• PR-300 through PR-9914 are Primary Streets

• When adding cardinal directions to street maps use the Spanish letter surrounded by parentheses (for proper TTS pronunciation in spanish)

• (N) = Norte = North
• (S) = Sur = South
• (E) = Este = East
• (O) = Oeste = West

Example: PR-52 (S)

• Calle and Avenida should be spelled out for proper TTS pronunciation.

Road Shields

(This is a new feature being implemented on the Waze map that is available for Puerto Rico in a limited basis at this moment. Feb 2022)

• We will follow the guidance provided in the Shields and Turn_instruction sections of US Wazeopedia.
• Remember, Spanish is our first language and most if not all signage is in Spanish.
• Large/small caps for cardinal points are: Nᴏʀᴛᴇ (North), Sᴜʀ (South), Eꜱᴛᴇ (East), Oᴇꜱᴛᴇ (West) c/p from here
• In Puerto Rico many of the names of the roads are repeated over and over again in different cities/municipalities so you have to be extremely careful when assigning a road shield to the roads because you could be placing the wrong shield or damaging the work already done. This is because Waze only uses the name of the road to assign the shield and will apply it to any street with the same name.

Road Classification

M1-6A

Primary network: facilitates the movement of passengers and cargo between the main regions of the island. It is composed of freeways and segments of other roads with high standards. This network has been assigned road shield M1-6A.

M1-6B

Urban primary network: provides mobility between zones and important generators within the defined metropolitan areas. It is composed of those urban roads that complement the primary network within the metropolitan areas of San Juan, Ponce, Mayagüez, Arecibo, Aguadilla, Humacao, Caguas and Guayama. This network has been assigned the road shield M1-6B.

M1-6C

Secondary or intermunicipal network: provides access to municipalities from the primary network, plus those roads that connect the municipalities through an interconnected network. The network is made up of roads with different design characteristics that represent the best access route to the municipalities from the primary network. This network has been assigned the road shield M1-6C.

M1-6D

Tertiary or local network: provides access to the municipal center from peripheral communities and other important land uses. This network has been assigned the road shield M1-6D.

Note: It is quite possible to find inconsistencies between the shields shown in the BGS and the shields found on the roads themselves due to a mix of old signs and human errors, outdated SV images and the fact that some roads may have different classifications depending on the area they run through, which added to the current limitation of the shield functionality that does not allow assigning different shields to the same road (same name) creates some confusion. We are trying to gather information from the concerned government agencies to eventually make an appropriate decision on what to do in these cases.

Exit ramps and entrance ramps (on-ramps) Naming Standard

The rule of thumb is simple: The name applied to any ramp must match the information displayed by the "Big Green Signs" (also known as "BGS" in the Waze jargon) and following the general rules shown below. Additional information is available in the sub-section titled Exit ramps and entrance ramps (on-ramps) in the Road Names page.

Signed and Numbered Exits:

• Name the exit ramp as such: "Salida 5B: PR-17 (E) / Carolina / Trujillo Alto / Río Piedras / Aeropuerto / vía Avenida Piñero". In other words, start with the word "Salida" followed by the exit number, follow the exit number with a colon (": "), and separate all elements (shields and names) after the colon with slashes (" / ").

Spanish TTS

Signed and Unnumbered Exits

• name the exit ramp as such: "Salida a PR-8 (N) / San Juan / Aeropuerto / Hato Rey". In other words, start with the words "Salida a " followed by all elements on the sign (shields and names), separated with slashes (" / ").

Template:UnnamedexitTTS

Minimum Locking Standard

In Puerto Rico we have a set minimum standard for locking roads based on segment type. Any road of a certain segment type must be locked at least to the rank (level) in the chart below. Roads may be locked higher for protection and special situations (areas with construction, tricky design, frequent mistakes, imaging inaccuracies, and the like), but should not be locked lower.

A great time to implement these locks is while bringing the road types of an area into compliance with the current US road type standards (FC and highway systems). Lock the roads based on type after they've been set to current US road type standards.

Puerto Rico Minimum Locking Rank Standard

Segment Type	Statewide
Freeway	5
Ramp	4
Major Highway	4
Minor Highway	3
Primary Street	2
Street	1
• • • • Ferry • • • •	5
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| Railroad |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|	2

Speed Limits Guidelines

Please read and follow the established guidelines in the following section of Wazeopedia: Speed limits

For speed limit sign reporting we recommend the use of: Waze Update Request Marker App by dbcm.

See Puerto Rico/Major roads for guidance in Puerto Rico that may not be universal to all other states and territories.