btwhite92 (2022-10-16 16:58:02+00:00): Hi,
The discussions I've seen about this over the last year or two have largely centered around restructuring inter-regional highway classification and not so much about urban roadways. I'm not particularly set on this, but Reno/Sparks roadway network is a mess compared to most other cities that have a more coherent grid and I want to try a different approach to see if it makes more sense.

Right now in R/S, 'tertiary' corresponds fuzzily to anything from a minor "emergent" collector to a minor arterial, 'secondary' from minor arterial to busy major arterial, 'primary' to extra-busy artery usually with high access control (until Virginia through downtown core got upgraded). Here are some examples of the problems this introduces (side note that my definition of "busy" is taken both from my decade+ experience of having lived in Reno/Sparks - still a stones through away and drive through a couple times a month - along with evaluating NDOT TRINA traffic counts):

- Baring and Vista were both secondary since they're both arterial roads, though Vista carries significantly more traffic at a higher speed than Baring
- E Lincoln, now a very busy commercial road, was classed the same as quieter "emergent" collectors like Greenbrae or O'Callaghan
- Sun Valley and Highland Ranch both function as arterial roads and were both classed 'secondary' but SV is substantially busier and more built out
- Veterans maintains its 'trunk' class south of S Meadows, but based on both my experience driving it and analysis of traffic counts, there isn't a clear "most important" way to connect to the freeway once you enter the SE Reno suburban grid. Traffic counts drop off sharply as you move south with most traffic turning off at Steamboat/Damonte to connect with the freeway. There is no signage on 580 indicating Veterans for navigational use (i.e., Veterans Blvd exit to Sparks or similar). It acts functionally to collect traffic from SE Reno and funnel it into Sparks or east, and having it 'trunk' south of S Meadows seems like maintaining classification continuity for the sake of maintaining classification continuity rather than trying to represent what's happening on the ground.

I can come up with more examples but this is already enough of an essay as it is. Moving to the following scheme results in much more straightforward classification choices and resolves most of these problems:
Local -> res/unc
Collector -> tertiary
Minor arterial -> secondary
Major arterial -> primary
Urban 'highway' -> trunk
The tradeoff is a messier map with classification dead ends, but R/S has a messy roadway network with lots of terminal geography resulting in short but extremely busy spur arteries. I don't know if this is the right choice entirely, but loosening strictness around classification continuity solves a lot of the mess of classifying the road hierarchy here.

On urban trunks, Pyramid is the most trafficked non-freeway road in the entire region, and is built out much more as a highway than a major urban artery like McCarran. Having it the same classification as, say, Sparks, would under-represent its importance. Once Pyramid reaches McCarran, traffic splits off between Pyramid and west McCarran with bias towards W McCarran - there isn't a clear choice between the two. I might be convinced by an argument to bump N McCarran up to trunk between 395 and Pyramid since this "route" is again the heaviest trafficked urban route in the region (ie, at least 15% of the population of R/S drives this road daily, and that's at 1 driver per car).

I think there definitely needs to be more discussion about urban classifications now that everyone is mostly on the same page about inter-urban highways, and I'm happy to participate, but I'm not going to spur off a discussion any time I feel a reason to bump a road up past 'secondary' in a region that I am very familiar with and have been a primary contributor in for a decade now. There's lots of classification choices you've made in NV that I don't agree with (and that others have reached out to me with disagreements about as well) - NV 341 as primary, tolled park roads in Lake Mead NRA as primary, NV 157 dead-ending at a small summer community of less than 400 as primary, still very on the fence about 95 Alt through Yerington as trunk, Virginia through downtown Reno as primary - but I have left these alone despite my open disagreements about them since we haven't really settled on an urban road class structure here yet, and I ask for myself the same respect here.

Bradley