[Tagging] Classification of roads in the CBD?

[Brian M. Sperlongano]

In the US, we've spent considerable time and energy revising national and
state-specific guidelines[1] for highway classification over the last
year.  We're challenged by the fact that we have 50 states that each have a
unique interpretation on road route numbering schemes.  Many state
departments of transportation have even come up with their own
state-specific road categorization schemes, and there are several
mismatched federal ones as well.  All of this adds up to a potpourri of
data to consider, none of which neatly lines up to specific highway=*
values.  In some states, we were able to come up with more-or-less
objective criteria that takes the guesswork out of the equation, while in
other states, the approach retains some degree of subjectivity.

It's an all-too-frequent occurrence that a contributor pops up and says
"hey community, what do you think of the classification of <specific
road>?"  This is usually a red flag, because the right answer is "have a
discussion with other members of your state's community to see if you can
come up with clear criteria to determine the classification of roads in
your state, and then apply the criteria to this particular case".

So I don't know what conversations have happened in Australia regarding
highway classification, but this is ultimately a local issue, and in some
cases a hyper-local issue, that the global list is unequipped to give a
satisfactory answer on.  I would recommend going back to basics, examine
what has been done in other countries, and document and decide what scheme
makes sense in Australia, and then apply that scheme in a systematic way.
I will say that of all the national classification schemes, we spent the
most time examining the UK, simply because that's what the classification
scheme was most closely based on.  The "trunk" classification for us has
been the most challenging, and understanding how "A" roads were categorized
both in urban London as well as the rural fringes of Scotland helped guide
our decision-making in both urban and rural areas of the US.

[1]
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/2021_Highway_Classification_Guidance

On Mon, Mar 14, 2022 at 7:24 AM Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 14 Mar 2022, at 11:35, Mateusz Konieczny via Tagging <
> tagging at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>
> How should they be mapped? By the amount of traffic they carry, or what?
>
> Definitely no.
>
>
> highway=trunk/primary/secondary/tertiary/residential/unclassified/service/track
> should be selected by their importance and role in road network.
>
> which should correlate with the amount of traffic, locally. Of course you
> cannot compare one place with the other in terms of absolute traffic
> numbers.
>
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