[OSM-newbies] Advice: Do I use "unclassified" downtown streets?

[Randy Thomson]

Charlotte Wolter wrote:

>        I've been cleaning up the Tiger-based sections of the map for
> Santa Monica, California.   In the downtown area, about 40 square
> blocks, the streets are busy and not residential. But they also are
> not through ways, providing transportation between areas. They were
> marked "residential," but that's clearly not accurate at this time. I
> had changed the tags to "tertiary," because they are two-way and have
> white dashed lines and, sometimes, four lanes. They are often jammed
> with traffic. After reading the wiki, I was wondering if this where
> we use "unclassified"?         Apologies if this is an old question
> and thanks in advance for our help.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Charlotte

Charlotte,

I ran into the same problem, and asked basically the same question. I
never did get a satisfactory answer. One response doubted my situation
actually existed! From all the reading of the wiki and talk lists that
I have done, it seems that function overrides physical characteristics
when classifying highways. So, I decided that if it was a street that
doesn't go anywhere except through a commercial area for several
blocks, the best thing to do was to use highway=unclassified, and to
add a lanes=n qualifier if it has more than two lanes.

Of course, others may disagree.

-- 
Randy