[Tagging] Clarification unclassified vs residential

[Dave Swarthout]

While I agree with Georg's assessment in general, I want to point out that
in Thailand I often do downgrade an unclassified highway when it enters a
residential area because the differences between the two ways can be
significant. You will be driving along on a nice, smooth, two-lane highway
and when it enters a hamlet it might transform into a very narrow one-lane
street lined with houses. My intent when tagging is to indicate that the
highway when it passes through a town is not in any way a high-speed
thorofare. I was under the impression that "downgrading" it to residential
would help routers evaluate various alternative routes better.

So, yes, I do perceive an unclassified highway to be more significant than
a residential highway in several ways, speed, convenience, and also safety.

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 5:05 PM Georg Feddern <osm at bavarianmallet.de> wrote:

> Am 20.02.2019 um 10:22 schrieb Florian Lohoff:
>
> So for me retagging residential to unclassified is broken under the
> assumption that unclassified is something "better" than residential.
>
> It is even more broken when there is residential usage in which case
> unclassified is inappropriate.
>
> While discussing i found that there was some modification to the German
> version of unclassified not saying that unclassified is something
> "better" but suggesting that an unclassified should be dragged into
> city limits until the next higher class street. This lets user
> assume that unclassified is some higher priority than residential.
>
>
> I was treating those streets identical for the last 10+ years and only
> the city limits gave the indication whether to use unclassified or
> residential.
>
> Am i wrong with that usage?
>
>
> Even the english wiki says:
> "The tag highway <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway>=
> unclassified is used for minor public roads typically at the lowest level
> of the interconnecting grid network."
>
> As part of the interconnecting grid network it should connect to at least
> unclassified or higher roads - unless it is a dead end settlement.
> Tagging a through connecting road only because it is inside a city limit
> as residential makes no sense.
> And usually a connecting road from outside a city limit has at least a bit
> more traffic as an inner-city-only residential.
> So the conclusion an unclassified has a bit higher priority than a
> residential is not far from reality.
>
> Otherwise there is often the problem to tag the main access roads inside a
> bigger residential area.
> The practice to tag those as unclassified for a bit higher priority may
> not be optimal - but suitable.
>
> This discussion - and usage - is some years old now - and I thought you
> had at least knowledge of it from the german forum.
>
> Georg
> _______________________________________________
> Tagging mailing list
> Tagging at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
>


-- 
Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/attachments/20190220/c9bfb4fb/attachment-0001.html>