Labeling; giving your road the correct road type
While editing the maps, you will notice that some of the roads are not labeled properly. This means, the road type might be wrong (a highway is marked as a street) or that one road has a few road types (a highway is marked as Freeway, highway and primary at different segments).
The importance of proper labeling is in two aspects: 1. When viewing the map, the 'bigger' roads should appear at the far zoom levels. Without proper labels, the 'zoomed out' display can be very confusing. 2. When planning a route, major roads will get priority over smaller roads. For example, 6 miles on the US Hwy 101 are better than 6 miles on El Camino Real.
When editing your area and labeling roads, please work with these definitions in mind
Freeway
These are interstates (such as I- 90), highways, freeways and expressways that are multi-lane, divided roads with no stops (no traffic lights, exit and entrance from/to the road is through ramps)
Major Highway
A big highway, usually 3+ lanes, with minimal stops – mostly exits and interchanges, bt possibly with some intersections and junctions
Minor Highways
Usually a narrower highway, 2 lanes or less, that has stops or traffic lights at almost every intersection, but is still a highway (minor state route or highways, or minor US route or highway)
Ramps
all highway exits and entrances should be labeled as ramps.
Primary Street
Other streets or BLVD w/ stoplights that are relatively used (such as Middlefield Rd. in Menlo Park or Park blvd. in Oakland)
Street
all other regular streets
Service Roads
These are streets that are typically adjacent to a freeway (or major highway). Also called Frontage roads in some states. These could be access roads to the highway itself, but have the property of a regular or primary street.
Private Roads
A road that is not open to the public. You can drive on it, physically, but there may be legal (and physical) restrictions or it is a privately maintained road on private land.
Naming: giving your road the proper name
NOTE: we are in the process of revising the names as they appear in the cartouche. In the near future we will be able to display alternate names for each segment / road, and choose which one of these is the 'common' name.
If you are not sure about changing the name of a road, it is best to ask in the forum or wait until the changes described above are implemented.
Highways
The naming of highways is, of course, somewhat more complex than that of normal roads. Therefore, conventions must be followed to assure consistency throughout the map.
NOTE: All roads in our base maps came with the names as defined in the US TIGER dataset.
However, you might notice a few problems with the original road names: Some of the names are not the 'common' names (usually, waze will display the 'name' of the hwy while most people know this hwy by its number)
On other examples, the same highway will have a different name on each side (for example, US Hwy 101 going North, and Bayshore Fwy going South).
Some roads actually have two 'common' names (for example, the NJ Turnpike is also I- 95 and both are relevant names), but currently we can only display one name per road.
For all these issues, we ask that you currently leave the situation as is. We are working on a few fixes, that will automate the proper naming and also allow multiple names for each segments (with a 'Primary' name as the one being displayed, but other names that bring up the same search results).
Highways in the United States
Certain formatting guidelines must be followed to ensure that highway shields are shown in the Live Map. This will ensure that if, in the future, the developers choose to incorporate shields into the client, it will be trivial to do so.
- Interstate Highways
- Components of the Interstate Highway System should be denoted as shown:
- I- 10 E for Interstate 10, Eastbound
- I- 310 S for Interstate 310, Southbound
- I- 35E N for Interstate 35E, Northbound (this is a rare case)
- All interstates are divided highways by necessity, and they should be drawn as such in the map for navigational accuracy.
- US Highways
- Federal highways should be denoted as follows:
- US Hwy 61 S for U.S. Highway 61, Southbound
- US Hwy 90 W for U.S. Highway 425, Westbound
- US Hwy 90 Bus S for U.S. Highway 90 Business, Southbound
- US Hwy 90 Alt E for U.S. Highway 90 Alternate, Eastbound
- Use this format instead of "US-90" or "US- 90" is recommended since this is the format that the Live Map will parse.
- U.S. Highways will often have local road names (such as Airline Hwy for US 61 and Claiborne Ave for US 90, among others). Use these street names as the primary name for such highways if said name is used for addresses of houses and businesses along the highway.
- State Highways
- There is some debate as to what should be used for state highways. The Live Map will parse "State Rte xx" and show a sign; however, as different states have different naming conventions (and different shields), this is not optimal. Consistency within each state is key.
- The same note for U.S. Highways above applies for state highways. LA-308 in Golden Meadow should have "E Main St" as its primary name since that is the name used in addresses of houses and businesses along the highway.
Exits and ramps
Exits and ramps (on and off the highway) should both be labeled as ramps. The name should be based on what is seen on the exit / entrance sign.
- If the exit sign shows a number as well as a street or highway name, the exit ramp should be named "Exit 24 Schwarzenegger Road".
- If the exit serves multiple roads, use a slash with leading and trailing spaces: "Exit 32 Terminator Blvd / Total Recall Rd".
- If the exit is not numbered, "Exit to Kindergarten Ct" will do.
For entrance ramps, use this format: "to [street name] [direction] [control city]", where applicable. For example,
- "to I- 10 W Baton Rouge"
- "to Clearview Pkwy N / Mandeville"
- "to US Hwy 90 Bus W"
Using "Ramp to", "West", "WB", and "Westbound" is unnecessary, and we should avoid excess since we're dealing with small screens. On the contrary, do not omit the word "to", because this could cause confusion with, say, the "Select entire street" function. Also, try to include everything present on the sign. "to US Hwy 90 Business W to I- 10 W Miss River Br / Baton Rouge" is fine because it is accurate.
New streets
In some cases, there is no prior name since it is a new road that you just recorded. In this case, make sure to choose the proper road type.
Construction Zones; naming large sections of major roads that are under construction
Basic Rules
Start by following the naming rules for your major roads. Interstate as "I- 10". US highways as "US Hwy 90". To show that the segments are part of a construction zone, just add the suffix "CONST ZN". "I- 10" becomes "I- 10 CONST ZN". "US Hwy 90" becomes "US Hwy 90 CONST ZN".
When temporarily re-setting road geometry, closely monitor recent GPS points as the aerial maps will likely display an out-dated view. Also, be sure to closely monitor these sections of roadway and remove the CONST ZN suffix whenever the construction is done.