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<p>On 5/20/2021 11:27 AM, Adam Franco wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_quote">I don't know Ithaca that well, but
would NY-13 be an option for a sole upgrade? It would connect
to I-81 and from there on to Syracus/Binghamton on the east
end and points south/west via 86. <br>
<div>As a reference point, NY-13 (and NY-79) are <a
href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/national_highway_system/nhs_maps/new_york/ny_newyork.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">included in the NHS</a> while NY-96
to Geneva and NY-34 to Auburn aren't.</div>
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<p>By the proposal as written, NY-13 would certainly be tagged as
trunk. Some short segments of it already are. But other parts are
two-lane roads directly through villages, with stoplights and
plenty of residential driveways. In Dryden it takes a 90 degree
turn at a stoplight, switching between Main Street and North
Street. This is far enough from the current common usage of trunk
in the US that it gives a little pause. (Of course the definition
of trunk is part of what's on the table here.)</p>
<p>However, the way I read the text of the proposal ("the collection
of all highway=motorway + highway=trunk should comprise of the
network of roads on which a motorist would travel when transiting
between any pair of important population centers") we can't just
send one trunk through Ithaca and call it a day; we have to
account for transit between any pair of cities. So it sounds like
NY-79 (currently secondary, passing through villages and at least
one stop sign) would also need to be trunk, because a motorist
driving from Ithaca to Binghamton would generally use NY-79.</p>
<p>But things get murky when you want to go from Ithaca to
Rochester. There are several choices, and it's unclear which our
motorist would choose. The route that sticks to the most major
roads would via NY-96, NY-96A, US-20, NY-14 to I-90. Upgrading all
this to trunk would include urban blocks in downtown Geneva (12k,
so presumably not an important population center in its own right)
... But you probably wouldn't want to detour through Geneva, you'd
skirt via little roads like Serven and Packwood
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://osm.org/way/139892651">https://osm.org/way/139892651</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://osm.org/way/20124537">https://osm.org/way/20124537</a> ... Or
maybe you'd prefer to stay on NY-96 the whole way to the
interstate, which is reasonably direct but goes through more
villages with stoplights, 90 degree turns, low speed limits etc.
And there are other choices too -- NY-89 is an option, or straight
up NY-34 to US-20, for example. There just isn't a single obvious
best way. And no matter where I look, I don't see a trunk.</p>
<p>Maybe Ithaca's a good test case for minimum size to qualify for
"important population center". But it's not small -- the city is
30k and metro area is 100k. Having trunk connections would make
sense. But just because it would make sense doesn't mean they're
actually there.<br>
</p>
<p>Ultimately I think a rule saying that there *must* be at minimum
a trunk route between any two given cities, without paying any
heed to the physical nature of the roads between those cities, is
problematic.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
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<div>The urban trunk guidelines probably need some tweaking,
but the Manhattan grid is also a bit of a special case where
there are many equally large parallel routes through the
city grid. in both bridge cases they are extremely important
connections between boroughs with more population than
several states, so connections to motorways don't feel like
a good exclusionary principle. In the Manhattan Bridge case
I'd think it would make sense to upgrade Canal Street to
trunk as it connects across the island to the Holland tunnel
and does serve as a major through-traffic route.</div>
<div><br>
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<div>I'd want to look to local NYC mappers to make the call
though on which streets in Manhattan are the most sensible
to upgrade to trunk as an indication that this is the most
direct and heavily used way through the city (if not
necessarily <i>fastest</i> in heavy traffic when bypassing
on residential streets <i>may</i> be a time-saving).<br>
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<p>I'm not sold on the idea of using trunk instead of primary for
the most prominent surface roads in the urban grid. It seems like
a major departure from standard tagging practice and I don't see a
lot to gain by it.<br>
</p>
<p>But I could see an exception being made for Canal Street. Despite
being right in the densest part of the city, it carries a lot of
intercity and interstate traffic, including a fair amount of
freight. And it connects to trunks on both ends.</p>
<p>The downtown half of the West Side Highway (currently primary)
might also qualify. It's not really in the the grid per se though;
it's peripheral.<br>
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The proposed definition of primary also gives me pause
vis-a-vis NYC, in<br>
particular the line"in a large enough city, surface streets
with an exit<br>
from a motorway would likely qualify as primary." I see
plenty of<br>
examples of motorway exits onto secondary and tertiary
streets. The<br>
streets in question are not primary because they are *not*
the most<br>
prominent streets in the urban grid. (And there's probably
some sense in<br>
dumping motorway traffic into places that don't clog up the
major arteries!)<br>
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<div>I agree -- this guidance on motorway exit connections
should be revised as it may be unhelpful or
counterproductive in many cases. Its applicability is likely
dependent on historical development patterns.<br>
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Just to be clear, I don't think all of NYC's surface streets
are<br>
perfectly classified, but this kind of rule is going to hurt
more than<br>
it helps. We'd end up with lots of one-block-long primary
highways,<br>
which would trigger a ripple effect of upgrades to match
comparative<br>
prominence and to fix continuity errors.<br>
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One-block upgrades don't go toward the larger goal of
connectivity in the highway network at a given level and
greater, so guidelines should be revised to be more easily
applicable to reach toward the larger goal of connectivity
rather than adhering to a rule for the sake of a rule. While I
do visit every year, I'm not familiar enough with NYC to write
guidelines for the boroughs. I'd think that the most important
cross-borough and inter-borough routes would be motorway or
trunk depending on their construction. Below that would be the
next level of inter and intra-borough streets as primary. How
might you identify that next level of streets?<br>
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<p>The inter-boro roads are usually bridges and tunnels, and
generally they've been classified to match the highways or surface
streets that they connect. As for the surface streets, I tend to
assign prominence based on how useful a road is for a longish
surface-level drive. There are some telling physical
characteristics -- road length and width, two-way versus one-way,
number of lanes, dual carriageways, turn lanes, lights and stop
signs. I'd be hard-pressed to codify these into a rule system
though.</p>
<p>I haven't dug into it, but I imagine that NYC's Department of
Transportation has its own road classification system, and if so
it might yield some insights. Personally I'm partial to "ground
truth" classification.</p>
<p>Jason<br>
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