Author Topic: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?  (Read 3381 times)

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Offline dave1693

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PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« on: January 02, 2018, 05:05:54 pm »
While visiting my parents last week, we drove on something like 75% of a route signed in the field as "PA 29 Truck". I noticed in my own files that I have this route already listed, so I must have noticed the signs on an earlier trip. But it's apparently not in the TM database.

I've searched the forum archives as best I could and found nothing about this; if there actually is a topic for it please point me thataway.

The route, from south end to north end, is posted to start at PA 29 and Buckeye Rd southwest of Emmaus, and uses the following:
Buckeye Rd / Chestnut St (which is also PA 100 Truck) to PA 100 in Macungie
PA 100 north to Weilers Rd
Weilers Rd north to Hamilton Blvd in Trexlertown
Hamilton Blvd (and why PennDOT didn't ask for this to be US 222 Business I'll never understand) northeast to Lower Macungie Rd
Lower Macungie Rd southeast to PA 29 (Cedar Crest Blvd) where the truck route ends. Curiously, the signs at that end say to turn left to stay on PA 29 Truck.

This appears to be a route for heavy trucks to avoid a few weight-limited bridges on PA 29 near Emmaus, and looks to be around for a while as I've seen no news of plans to rebuild those bridges in the near future. Is this a route that should be added to the database?

Offline yakra

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Re: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2018, 11:32:48 pm »
While visiting my parents last week, we drove on something like 75% of a route signed in the field as "PA 29 Truck". I noticed in my own files that I have this route already listed, so I must have noticed the signs on an earlier trip. But it's apparently not in the TM database.
I checked the usapa.csv file edit history on GitHub, to see if there used to be one listed that got deleted. Nothing. I checked the CHM updates. Nothing.
It doesn't appear to have ever existed.
Checking your list file, I see PA PA29TrkMac PA29_S PA29_N added on Jan 27, 2016, the first update after the initial commit. Maybe seeing the .list lines added/changed in the 2016-01-27 link might jog your memory WRT that specific road trip. But anyway... There's another TrkMac route, PA100TrkMac, which shares the Buckeye Rd alignment.
A friendly finger-shaking here; it's always a good idea to check the HB for a route and its points before adding it into your .list -- not only to get the City abbreviation right (EG, Mac as opposed to Emm, etc.), but also the waypoint labels. PA29_S & PA29_N look like pretty safe labels, but not all truck routes connect to the parent at both ends. 8) No harm done here though. It's helped us find an oddity.

I've searched the forum archives as best I could and found nothing about this; if there actually is a topic for it please point me thataway.
AFAIK, there's not a topic for this specific route.
OTOH, search the forum for "truck", and... hoo boy.
CHM/TM veterans know that the best way to discuss *&^$# Truck Routes is to hold down Shift and mash a bunch of number keys. :)

This appears to be a route for heavy trucks to avoid a few weight-limited bridges on PA 29 near Emmaus, and looks to be around for a while as I've seen no news of plans to rebuild those bridges in the near future.
I wanna say that a good many truck routes in PA are this exact same thing. One of them did get deleted in the not-too-distant past after its bridge was rebuilt.
ISTR there being discussion on these, probably (WRT PA specifically) occurring more on the old CHM forum. I can't be bothered to look any of it up now, but I wanna say (and I could be talking out of my tuckus here) that the idea was not to put much extra effort into finding/listing/cataloging all these routes, but to add them as we became aware of them. With a few misgivings about that, possibly...

Is this a route that should be added to the database?
If this route existed in March 2012 (when Tim added PA100TrkMac), AND Tim knew about it at that time, he probably would have added it.
But it's 2018 now, and Tim no longer maintains PA.
Nonetheless, Tim's M.O., at least in PA, seemed to be to include such (temporary?) truck routes when known. So right now I'm leaning slightly toward including it, for the sake of maintaining consistency within PA.
I think rickmastfan67 is probably the mostly knowledgeable data contributor WRT PA. Thoughts?
« Last Edit: January 02, 2018, 11:37:00 pm by yakra »
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Offline dave1693

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Re: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2018, 11:31:45 pm »
I checked the usapa.csv file edit history on GitHub, to see if there used to be one listed that got deleted. Nothing. I checked the CHM updates. Nothing.
It doesn't appear to have ever existed.
Checking your list file, I see PA PA29TrkMac PA29_S PA29_N added on Jan 27, 2016, the first update after the initial commit. Maybe seeing the .list lines added/changed in the 2016-01-27 link might jog your memory WRT that specific road trip. But anyway... There's another TrkMac route, PA100TrkMac, which shares the Buckeye Rd alignment.
Based on the records I have access to, I did not have PA 29 Truck on my list as of August 2015, so my best guess is that the 29 truck route was established in the summer or autumn  of 2015. I'm pretty sure I was inspired to add that line by seeing the signs during that time period, in hopes that that truck route would be added to the CHM/TM database soon (which obviously didn't happen).

As for the city abbreviation, I probably based hypothetical PA29TrkMac off of existing PA100TrkMac, given that they share a segment and that PA 29 Truck does go through Macungie, though its intent apparently is to bypass the weight-limited bridges southwest and northwest of Emmaus. (As a result, PA 29 Truck doesn't touch the borough of Emmaus at all.) I have no preference for which city/borough/village/CDP gets tagged for it.

CHM/TM veterans know that the best way to discuss *&^$# Truck Routes is to hold down Shift and mash a bunch of number keys. :)

That sounds about right, yes. :-D

Offline rickmastfan67

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Re: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2018, 12:16:51 am »
As long as the route has 'real' truck banners above a PA-29 shield, I'd say add it.

Offline yakra

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Offline yakra

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Re: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2018, 01:23:58 pm »
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Offline rickmastfan67

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Re: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2018, 01:35:28 pm »
Is it just me, or does the '*TreRd_S' point look to be in the wrong position?  I doubt the 'old' road connected there due to a house being there.

I think the location that OSM shows a service road with the name 'Old Trexlertown Road' would be the correct location for that point.

Offline yakra

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« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 02:14:11 pm by yakra »
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Offline rickmastfan67

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Re: PA: PA 29 Truck around Emmaus?
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2018, 09:19:57 am »
Ah, ok. :)