Complete Guide to Waze in Canada (Under Development)
- Since the USA and Canada share the same Waze server, please refer to USA link in the left menu bar for additional information.
- This page should also available in French. See "Use your language skills" below.
Help Improve Waze
Map Editing
- Please follow the Canada Post street type abbreviation to reduce map clutter by not using long road type name.
e.g. John St, Bayview Ave, Don Valley Pky, Slick Dr, Main Blvd
See http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGaddress-e.asp#1423617 for full details in English and French.
- Canada Post also published the abbreviations for provinces and territories [1]
e.g. Whitehorse, YT Toronto, ON Charlottetown PE
- For wide roads (at least 3 lanes on each direction) with two directions of traffic, consider the best map editing practice for North America so that a GPS lock will be made correctly. Note: standard lane width is about 3.5m, typical GPS accuracy is about 10-20m. Generally, splitting a road is not desirable.
Problems and Issues
Canadian highways are defined differently than their US counterparts, please have a look at the discussion page and comment.
The Montreal Area has unique issues of its own.
Development Plans for definitions
Naming
Towns, cities villages etc... To save space just put in the name of the city, example "Toronto" not "City of Toronto", or for smaller places use "Springfield" not "Town of Springfield" or "Village of Springfield"
Also unique to Canada is we don't have state or province fields available to us when editing, please avoid the use of the province after the place. For example don't put in "Springfield, Qc" or "Springfield, On" because it is known to make two towns in the same place, and is almost impossible to eradicate. Many towns have "Springfield" and "Springfield, Qc" in the same area which confuses things which we're trying to avoid.
Trans-Canada Highway
Road type: Freeway
Primary name: Hwy 1
Alternate: Trans-Canada Hwy
There are parts of Hwy 1 that travel through some National/Provincial parks with frequent stops, reduced speed and undivided portions. These segments should be reduced to a Major highway until the speed increases, stops are minimized and the highway is divided again.
Quebec Roads
Autoroutes, or limited access highways, such as the 20/40/55 or any *40 are considered freeways
http://www.waze.com/wiki/images/4/41/RoadBlue.png
The big exception to this rule is Autoroute 50 which is still a freeway, even though some small parts of it are not limited access and some are only two lane with no divider.
100 & 200 series highways, for example the 117, the 132 138 148 201 are major highways when compared to 300 series highways and should be in red.
http://www.waze.com/wiki/images/2/28/Majorhighwayseg.png
300 series highways such as the 315,321,327, and the 329 are minor highways and should be in yellow.
http://www.waze.com/wiki/images/3/37/RoadYell.png
Ontario Roads
all 400 series highways are in blue as they are limited access freeways. Also other highways for example the 174 just east of Ottawa are also in blue as they are limited access.
http://www.waze.com/wiki/images/4/41/RoadBlue.png
Certain Major highways are two lane but are still in red because they collect the minor highways, and many county roads and we need to distinguish them, examples are the 174 east of Ottawa/Orleans, the 17, the 138, 38 the 7 in eastern Ontario.
http://www.waze.com/wiki/images/2/28/Majorhighwayseg.png
County roads will be in yellow as they have higher speed limits them most main roads.
http://www.waze.com/wiki/images/3/37/RoadYell.png
Alberta Roads
Minor/Major Highways should be named:
Hwy # (H is capitalized, the 'wy' in lower case, followed by a number) e.g. Hwy 216
Not 'Highway #' or 'HWY # (all caps)'.
Very few roads should be named a freeway in Canada. Currently, only ring roads (perimeter roads around a city), Hwy 1 (including the highways Hwy 1 splits into*), Hwy 2 and any highways with limited access (e.g. highways with no street lights and access is exclusive to ramps entrances) .
When considering the road type, use the rules for the US as a guideline, with the idea that a Canadian "Freeway" may lack one of the criteria used in the US (e.g. Whitemud Freeway in Edmonton is 80 km/h, but meets all other criteria; Hwy 16 W of Edmonton doesn't have ramps for every junction, but meets all other criteria)