How do I get road intersection symbology to display properly?

Question

so, I'm finding that at intersections of roads, I am unable to get correct display by making changes in the road symbols themselves in Arc 10. Sometimes one road will display on top of the intersecting road, and sometimes vice versa--I haven't found any apparent pattern to the display. There must be another way to do this. ???

Answer 1

I think what you might be looking for is Symbol Level Drawing, which

is accessed from the Advanced button on the Symbology tab of the Layer Properties dialog box.

As described in the online help:

Symbol level drawing allows you to control the drawing order of feature symbology and controls how line symbols connect to each other. Using symbol level drawing, you can specify the order that symbols and symbol layers for multilayer symbols are drawn on your map, overriding the default ArcMap drawing sequence.

Answer 2

This sounds like one of the use cases for Cartographic Representations, perhaps you may want to consider spending some time getting to know them if this is a critical requirement for you. Unfortunately, it requires an ArcEditor or ArcInfo license to create representations so this suggestion may or may not be applicable to you.