Temporary Road Closings

[kconover]

I just heard that the 10th Street Bypass in the middle of downton Pittsburgh (see pictures) will be closed for 6 months to get ready for a subway tunnel under the river here.

The river is the Allegheny, and the big building just East of where Ft.Duquesne Blvd. comes in to merge into the 10th St Bypass, is the Pittsburgh Convention Center, which hange over the eastern end of Ft. Duquesne Blvd.

(BTW, the 10th Street Bypass, a major commuter route, is totally wrong in SA2007; it's in the wrong place and connects in ways that have no correspondence with reality.)

Suggestion: if there is a long-term closure of a major road like this, ship the next dataset with the street shown, but have it "edited" as "no way" so people can edit this to turn it back to routable after the road is opened again.

[Sanaghan]

You mean something similar to this?
http://forum.delorme.com/viewtopic.php?t=2492
I just suggested a warning that for the year software is issued that there be a warning for the area. That way if you were routing, you could still choose to go through, but you'd get warning that directions aren't exact due to construction changes.

Feel free to second it, and add your additional twist. Every new suggestion/recommendation is like a vote. Except it's not a democracy, but it might get DeLorme's attention.

[kconover]

I was thinking of something more like this, and for simple things like "this bridge/road will be closed for about six months. It's different than your more general "this area is under construction." When more specific limited closures are available, routing can still proceed and work properly though the area.

And once the road/bridge is opened again, users can edit to "remove" the blockage to routing.

Look at the picture. Imagine this is what it looks like EVEN with "show edits" turned off.

If users right-click one of the red Xs, it leads to information about:

1. The information that led to this closure "PennDOT announced that, starting January 15, the 10th Street Bypass would be closed for restructuring leading to the planned tunnel for the Northside subway extension."

2. How to Edit Roads to remove the road closure.

This would require a new type of road edit: one that shipped with the dataset, and that was visible even if "show edits" were turned off.

"Show edits" is turned off by default, and if the program refused to route over a road that LOOKED fine on the map, there would be complaints. Showing the road as blocked by default would be better.

An alternative is to ship the product with "Show Edits" checked by default.

But then people will turn it off and you'll get the same complaints as described above.

[usascottwright]

Why not implement the following:
Click on Road Closing. It will ask you how many days should this be closed: [1] day(s). You could mark this maybe a traffic accident so you don't want to route your self through that area again during that time period. If a bridge is out and the city says 6 months than you can put in [190] days. After that time period the software will automatically remove the road closing.

Lastly why not have automatic updates. The next time a user connects to the internet, it will automatically send these updates to delorme and each user will automatically download new updates, all seamlessly in the back ground, automatically. Each user helps out other users and Delorme at the same time.

[Sanaghan]

You'd have to include some sort of "trust."

Otherwise anyone could mark the major highways closed (and if they wanted to be evil they could do it with one of those 1-foot long segments that are almost impossible to click), and upload it.