Using “Merge Divided Roads” tool with lesser parallel lines

Question

When using the "Merge Divided Roads" tool, it merges roads that "trend generally parallel to one another". This means that from figure one.. It will merge the beginning, where the roads are close to each other (so the result is like figure 2), but not the entire length like I want it to (figure 3). I believe this is because the lines are not parallel enough (the angle between some of the lines are too big). Because even if I extend the merging distance to 300m (which is more than how far the roads are apart), I still don't get the result from figure 3.

Anybody know how to decrease how parallel the lines have to be to get merged?

Answer 1

if you are willing to explore non-arcgis/open-source solutions you can try using the Skeletron python tools created by Mike Migurski at Stamen. I've found this to be very useful for the problem you're addressing. See https://github.com/migurski/Skeletron