I've noticed that the "Avoid Highways" routing is pretty useless here in Texas, and I'm curious whether other states have the same problem.
The state Department of Transportation does a fair job of maintaining the largest system of paved roads in the country, but their cartography leaves something to be desired. On the official state map, there are two types of highways: 4-lane, and Interstate. There's no differentiation between a 4-lane controlled-access highway and a 4-lane divided highway with crossovers. But Interstates get special treatment, as if there's some magical difference conferred by the multicolor signage.
It looks as though that encoding found its way into the maps used by TomTom. In Dallas, for example, I've seen "avoid highways" route along fully controlled-access highways like US 67 and US 75. They're also a different color than the "superior" Interstates.
I'm curious whether this is just a problem with TxDOT's bizarre cartography and road classification? Or is it a more general problem -- perhaps a mismatch between the European "motorway" classification (which describes a road's characteristics) and the American "Interstate" designation (which is just a numbering convention)?
The state Department of Transportation does a fair job of maintaining the largest system of paved roads in the country, but their cartography leaves something to be desired. On the official state map, there are two types of highways: 4-lane, and Interstate. There's no differentiation between a 4-lane controlled-access highway and a 4-lane divided highway with crossovers. But Interstates get special treatment, as if there's some magical difference conferred by the multicolor signage.
It looks as though that encoding found its way into the maps used by TomTom. In Dallas, for example, I've seen "avoid highways" route along fully controlled-access highways like US 67 and US 75. They're also a different color than the "superior" Interstates.
I'm curious whether this is just a problem with TxDOT's bizarre cartography and road classification? Or is it a more general problem -- perhaps a mismatch between the European "motorway" classification (which describes a road's characteristics) and the American "Interstate" designation (which is just a numbering convention)?
