Road Type Editing - A Pain

So after editing over 15 000 roads all around the world (and getting over half of them approved) there is one thing that really bugs me.

And that is not being able to switch road types right from the editing menu.

Which roads am I talking about? Let me show you:

Almost all of the roads in the picture above are marked with thick white lines - Local roads. But that isn’t the case. Since I didn’t know what to think of this before hand, I asked @JustJake what to do about this and how it all works. Half of the roads in the picture are NOT local roads but utility roads for trash collection or private access. This means that they have to be either switched to walking/biking trails because after all they are pass-through-able or removed entirely depending on the state and laws the state has.

The editing process right now:

  1. Select a road in question and remove it

  2. Wait till the road is actually gone

  3. Place a new road with the desired type

This process can take weeks and months to have a result and it’s quite frustrating.

Available options:

A box with “Road type” would definitely help make editing roads better.

I haven’t ran into this problem recently and after talking about it with @SholaIB I came to the conclusion that people just have better things to do and don’t want to put this much time and effort into fixing something that can be interrupted by anyone in the world and as a result take even years to fix.

From my perspective it would be in Google’s interest to make it easier for all of us - volunteers.

After all, we have helped edit a huge amount of roads on the planet (I didn’t forget about you Road Mapper users).

I’d like to tag the most active and valuable members of the TRAC campaign that can support this suggestion: @NareshDarji , @MarcoDavoli , @ErmesT , @LovePathak28 , @HsRawal , @TravellerG , @Rakshi2 , @jayasimha78 and of course many more great contributors.

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Ciao @Lukas_1 ,

after adding “only” 5000 roads circa I went to so many difficulties, especially in EDIT MODE, that I come to the idea that we, of the TRAC campaign, should start to write down all this ideas hoping that a GM can pass it to someone who can take care of it. @SholaIB what do you think? For example, when a road passes under a bridge. In Google Maps, you can already find many roads accurately mapped (i.e., without intersections). However, those who add or edit the roads are not allowed to do so.

About the case you highlighted… when I found some wrong type of roads I simply delete and recreate it with the correct road type. Your point 2 “Wait till the road is actually gone” is almost immediate. Maybe I misunderstand the procedure; but the Edit Information Options should be expanded.

Take care

Ciao

Marco

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Hello @MarcoDavoli

Of course the problem of not being able to create roads that pass over each other is also big. The ability to create them like that should be available as a basic tool.

What I meant by waiting for the road to disappear - I have looked up some of my approved edits from months ago and didn’t see the roads on the map yet. I don’t know how long it should take before I actually see the approved ones on the map, but it has to be a long time.

Thank you for your contribution on TRAC and here.

1 Like

Hello @Lukas_1

This is part of the achievements and ideas behind organising TRAC campaign. . Aside leveling up,improving the maps,we are also deducting facts that works around adding roads to Google maps. Hopefully this will be a good training for the AI and Google roads team and engineers.

I.have come across POIs that lacks category for instance and I could then edit and add the category. I have also come across POIs that have a wrong category. Simple editing the wrong category for the right one is great. It’s such a long process to think of deleting and re-adding all over again.

It will be a nice thing of we cam also edit roads like that as well. Thank you for your participation and contributions on TRAC campaign This goes to @MarcoDavoli as well.

Happy mapping

Cheers

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Ciao @MarcoDavoli

Having to delete and re-create the road is a cord!!! It should be simpler than that really.

I also feel its a long process. The AI has to figure out or approve the delete first. Then verify of to approve the new road etc.

I sincerely have avoided wrong roads. Drawing new roads is far easier and better maybe. Well we learn to live. We live and learn.

Happy mapping

Cheers

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@Lukas_1 You may have found the theme for a new campaign! If we can add 50,000 roads, maybe we can clean up as many, too!

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@JustJake that’s right although I’ll have to take some time off after this challenge is over :smile: .

Saying it here first - anyone can take Jake’s idea and make it happen, I’d be glad to contribute (a little).

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@JustJake @Lukas_1 #LGCTR (Local Guides Clean The Roads) :rofl:

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We’ll see about that next year @JanVanHaver , maybe someone will take on this huge task :grin:

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Agree with you @Lukas_B. It’s Google who can make this easier for us to fix these incorrect data within Map :world_map:. Otherwise, volunteers won’t do it at bigger scale.
Hopefully, Google will does some changes :crossed_fingers:t3:.