Naming Michigan lefts
I think it's high time we got to this. Unnamed Michigan lefts (all of them, as far as I can tell) don't actually tell you where you're going -- telling you you're gonna have to turn left in 6 miles onto the road you're already on isn't helpful.
Some Michigan lefts have little green signs that tell you where they're gonna take you.
It seems pretty much standard that, if there is a sign, the road you're on is listed first, and the road you'd be going to or coming from is listed second, if at all. Most of the signs I've seen give both. If there is a name and a route number, typically the name is given first, with the route number second. The one up there on M-59 is an exception, but it's just before the beginning of the M-59 freeway portion, so maybe that has something to do with it.
To help navigating Michigan make sense, I think we should start naming those little Michigan left turnarounds, with a standard format: "to [road you're on] [direction you'll be going] / [road you might be eventually turning onto] [direction you'd be going if you made that turn]". So if you're travelling westbound on Metro Pkwy at Gratiot, the label for the Michigan left turnaround would read "to Metro Pkwy E / Gratiot Ave S". If you're traveling south on the expressway portion of M-53 at 30 Mile, the label for the turnaround would be "to M-53 N / 30 Mile Rd E".
In cases where there is both a name and a route number, in this case, I think we should leave the route number out. IMO, it's a waste of space to have to put "Gratiot Ave S / M-3 S" in there, and it would kind of defeat the purpose to lose out on the name of the other road because the first one used too much space on the screen. Unless you think it's better to use just the route number ...
The more common Michigan left sign, of course, is the one placed at the intersection from the other street:
That can be used to find the proper name to use on the Michigan left.
For more complicated intersections, if there is another, dedicated way to get to one of the two roads served by a Michigan left, then the turnaround doesn't need that instruction. See Van Dyke at 15 Mile:
https://www.waze.com/editor/?lat=42.551 ... TTFTTTTFTT
There is a dedicated connector to get from Van Dyke N to 15 Mile W, so it is not included on the turnaround. In contrast, there is no dedicated connector from Van Dyke S to 15 Mile E, so that instruction is included in the turnaround.
Also, since these are at-grade connectors, use the lower of the two road types at the intersection, even if they aren't actually physically connected. Even if that means a primary street in the middle of two minor highway spans (see the same example), we want to keep the road types as low as we can to limit displaying these names, but we need to keep it as high as we need to for navigation. If you're coming from or going to 15 Mile, you're on a primary street anyway, so having the turnaround as a primary street won't cause any trouble.
(Obviously you'd use Primary Street and not Dirt Road for the 30 Mile example up there. I would imagine, if the type of one street changes at an intersection, that it would be appropriate to use the higher of those two types for that road, to keep it both navigable and symmetrical.)
So, in short:
What do you think? Good idea? Any issues with it?
In particular, how do you feel about dropping either the road name or route number when there are both?
Some Michigan lefts have little green signs that tell you where they're gonna take you.
It seems pretty much standard that, if there is a sign, the road you're on is listed first, and the road you'd be going to or coming from is listed second, if at all. Most of the signs I've seen give both. If there is a name and a route number, typically the name is given first, with the route number second. The one up there on M-59 is an exception, but it's just before the beginning of the M-59 freeway portion, so maybe that has something to do with it.
To help navigating Michigan make sense, I think we should start naming those little Michigan left turnarounds, with a standard format: "to [road you're on] [direction you'll be going] / [road you might be eventually turning onto] [direction you'd be going if you made that turn]". So if you're travelling westbound on Metro Pkwy at Gratiot, the label for the Michigan left turnaround would read "to Metro Pkwy E / Gratiot Ave S". If you're traveling south on the expressway portion of M-53 at 30 Mile, the label for the turnaround would be "to M-53 N / 30 Mile Rd E".
In cases where there is both a name and a route number, in this case, I think we should leave the route number out. IMO, it's a waste of space to have to put "Gratiot Ave S / M-3 S" in there, and it would kind of defeat the purpose to lose out on the name of the other road because the first one used too much space on the screen. Unless you think it's better to use just the route number ...
The more common Michigan left sign, of course, is the one placed at the intersection from the other street:
That can be used to find the proper name to use on the Michigan left.
For more complicated intersections, if there is another, dedicated way to get to one of the two roads served by a Michigan left, then the turnaround doesn't need that instruction. See Van Dyke at 15 Mile:
https://www.waze.com/editor/?lat=42.551 ... TTFTTTTFTT
There is a dedicated connector to get from Van Dyke N to 15 Mile W, so it is not included on the turnaround. In contrast, there is no dedicated connector from Van Dyke S to 15 Mile E, so that instruction is included in the turnaround.
Also, since these are at-grade connectors, use the lower of the two road types at the intersection, even if they aren't actually physically connected. Even if that means a primary street in the middle of two minor highway spans (see the same example), we want to keep the road types as low as we can to limit displaying these names, but we need to keep it as high as we need to for navigation. If you're coming from or going to 15 Mile, you're on a primary street anyway, so having the turnaround as a primary street won't cause any trouble.
(Obviously you'd use Primary Street and not Dirt Road for the 30 Mile example up there. I would imagine, if the type of one street changes at an intersection, that it would be appropriate to use the higher of those two types for that road, to keep it both navigable and symmetrical.)
So, in short:
- Name every Michigan left turnaround with the name of the two streets it serves in the directions it serves each preceded by "to" (NEW), starting with the street the Michigan left connects to; and
- Type every Michigan left turnaround as a ramp (NEW) (changed from: "with the lower of the types of road it serves").
What do you think? Good idea? Any issues with it?
In particular, how do you feel about dropping either the road name or route number when there are both?
MUTI standards revisited