Highway Status
The status for all interstates, federal, and state highways running through Idaho are documented here. This includes any project status pertaining to those highways, as well as any known changes coming down the pike from ITD and/or other cities as we find out about them.
State highway naming
State highways should now use the ID-### convention. Shields have stopped working with the prior SH-xxx format so we should work toward the standard that will be expected when the next release of shields are deployed. There is current TTS support for ID-###.
Ramp names should also use the ID-### format when referencing state highways.
County road naming
County roads with the name designation of "County Road ##" or "Co Rd ##" are to be named in Waze as CR-##. This shortened version takes up less space on the map screen and is announced correctly as "County Road ##" while navigating with the Waze app.
Locking standard
In Idaho 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.
| Segment Type | Statewide |
|---|---|
| Freeway | 5 |
| Ramp | 5 |
| Major Highway | 3 |
| Minor Highway | 3 |
| Primary Street | 2 |
| Street | 1 |
| • • • • Ferry • • • • | 5 |
| |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| Railroad |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | 2 |
Note: Certain roads may be locked higher than the above minimums. Please do not lower locks unless approved by the RC or SM of Idaho.
Roads named N, S, E or W
If you encounter any roads that are named N, S, E, or W, you must add a period (.) to the end of the letter. For example, West N Street is abbreviated as W N. St. County Road W is abbreviated as CR-W., and so on. This ensures the TTS system reads the road name as "County Road W" and not "County Road West."
U-turns
Page 2-10 of the Idaho Driver's Manual says this about U-turns:
- U-turns are not legal everywhere, so first look for prohibiting signs. When making a U-turn near a hill or curve, the law requires that you be able to see 500 feet in either direction. U-turns are prohibited in no-passing zones. Stop and yield to all traffic before completing a U-turn.
For Waze routing, u-turns should only be enabled where they provide the potential for improved routing, which includes recovering from missed turns. A common example is a median-divided primary street that has homes/businesses with their driveways/entrances directly on it, where reaching them would otherwise require lengthy, multi-turn deviations through side roads in order to end up on the correct side of the median.
Road Elevations
These are the general guidelines for elevation in Idaho:
- Drivable and non-drivable segments are handled the same way with elevation.
- Set elevation to ground in most cases.
- Segment(s) passing over other segment(s), rivers, major waterways, and all bridges shall have higher elevation, relative to ground.
- Only elevate/lower the actual bridge/tunnel section of the road.
- Elevation of overlapping segments should be set relative to each other, with the lowest segment as Ground (unless a tunnel).
- Tunneled segments shall have lower elevation, relative to ground.
- Only segments that "cannot see the sky" should have negative elevation (i.e. tunnels).
- Only set elevation as low/high as necessary.
- If you use the Bridge tool to join segments, be aware that it raises the elevation of the joined segment. Lower the joined segment as appropriate.
- "True Elevation" guidelines apply to elevation in Idaho.
- Bridges should be cut at the start/end of the bridge.
- Tunnels should be cut at least 15m/50ft before and after the tunnel, to allow time for the GPS to regain signal.
- Do not cut segments for elevation purposes if the bridge/tunnel starts/stops within 60m/200ft of an existing junction.