[Talk-ca] Highway recoding

Wed Jan 27 19:17:59 UTC 2016

Thank for your participation Ken,
Your proposal on trunk looks good but I could you distinguish between trunk and primary roads?

I would find difficult to make the difference between a trunk and a primary road (even some secondary) since most of them are linking two or more cities, ports, … be the recommended route for long-distance and freight traffic.

Furthermore, as far as I remember, there used to be an agreement on this list about primary roads tagging. The result is still available under Canada/primary roads on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway:International_equivalence.
At least one of your examples contradicts the above.

This thread started last summer when I saw most of the primary roads converted to trunk in my neighbourhood. The concerned contributor and I do not interpret the trunk and primary roads definitions the same. Do you have in mind some “easily identifiable criteria” that would make him and I tag a primary or trunk road the same? My initial proposal was not about the best definition, but about a definition that would make most of us using the same tag while mapping.

But maybe it does not matter…
Daniel

From: Ken Wuschke [mailto:chandler.vancouver at gmail.com]
Sent: January-27-16 12:44
To: Begin Daniel
Cc: talk-ca
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Highway recoding

I still lean towards function over design as how to define a trunk road.

The present Tag: highway=trunk for high performance roads that don't meet the requirement for motorway actually is inclusive of the function of the highway.  All that is required is further the definition to clarify this point.

For a moment I stepped out of OSM's definitions and took at look to Wikipedia which says:

"A trunk road, trunk highway, or strategic road is a major road, usually connecting two or more cities, ports, airports and other places, which is the recommended route for long-distance and freight traffic. Many trunk roads have segregated lanes in a dual carriageway<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_carriageway>, or are of motorway standard." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunk_road

I note that this description is more about the purpose of the highway than if it is 2-lanes or 4-lanes, has a dividing barrier, limited access interchanges, etc.

While focusing on the design of a highway to determine if it should be a trunk, primary, secondary, tertiary, or residential is far easier to define over the function/purpose of highway it, IMO, misses the point of what a map should be providing. Information to the user as how to travel efficiency from point A to point B.

Turning to existing examples of provincial and state maps for guidance I find these examples:

  *   Alberta - http://bit.ly/1ZT3Sz0 - It shows the following three levels. (1) Freeways. (2) Paved provincial highways regardless as to the number of lanes. (3) Gravel surfaced highways.
  *   Saskatchewan - http://bit.ly/1OPB7Ag - (1) Divided highways. (2) Paved provincial highways regardless as to the number of lanes. (3) Thin membrane surfaces - important for heavily load trucks. (4) Gravel surfaces.
  *   Washington state - http://1.usa.gov/1KFy1uI - (1) Interstate. (2) Dual carriageway design state highways. (3) Undivided state highways. (4) County/local roads.
When I look at these I find them easy to understand the network between destinations versus having design being the primary focus.

Therefore I'd like to suggest the follow definition for Tag: highway=trunk:

high performance roads that don't meet the requirement for motorway design standards and linking two or more cities, ports, airports and other places, which is the recommended route for long-distance and freight traffic.

There can be a further definition for clarity. For example, I would classify Quebec Highway 133 - http://bit.ly/1RNQooL - which links Autoroute 35 to the United States and Interstate 89. However, Quebec Highway 133 does not have any major destination along its route itself.

Looking forward to further discussion,
Ken

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 8:31 AM, Begin Daniel <jfd553 at hotmail.com<mailto:jfd553 at hotmail.com>> wrote:
Well, I am not sure about the conclusion at this point but in order to move forward, here are some definitions I would propose using wiki’s definitions and current tread discussions:

Tag: highway=motorway to identify the highest-performance roads within a territory. Typically, these controlled-access highways have a minimum of two lanes in each direction that are separated by a barrier…

Tag: highway=trunk for high performance roads that don't meet the requirement for motorway. In Canada, these roads must have some of the controlled-access features found on a motorway.

Tag: highway=primary for major highway linking large towns … The traffic for both directions is usually not separated by a central barrier. In Canada, these roads usually have none of the controlled-access features found on trunk and motorway.

Most of the confusion comes from the governmental pdf document, cited in the Canadian tagging guidelines (wiki), which uses definitions that do not correspond to those of OSM. Once most of us agree on a set of definitions, starting using the above, we should provide adjusted definitions in the wiki and remove the pdf document.

Hope it will help
Daniel

From: Chandler Vancouver [mailto:chandler.vancouver at gmail.com<mailto:chandler.vancouver at gmail.com>]
Sent: January-26-16 16:49
To: Stewart Russell
Cc: talk-ca
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Highway recoding

Completely agree, Stewart.

Similarly I live just off a road I would consider to be a tertiary level road. It runs for only 4 km and links up residential side streets, a high school, an elementary school and a small scale commercial zone. It is only two lanes wide but for over 50% of its length has a centre boulevard or a centre dual left turn lane. As well, less than 25% of its length has residences that off it and none where you can park on the road itself.

Where it meets four main crossroads the intersections are as follows:

Intersection A: full signal with priority given to the crossroad.

Intersection B: a four-way stop.

Intersection C: full signal with priority given to the road in question.

Intersection D: a stop sign with the crossroad given full priority over the road in question.

In addition there is a walking trail that crosses with a pedestrian activated signal but with an advanced warning signal as described at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada:British_Columbia#Highways_and_provincial_roads under "trunk".

Driving the full length you would know it is a tertiary level route, yet I can take photographs of the route that could lead you to believe it is a trunk road.

---

Another example is SW Marine Drive between Camosun Street and the University of British Columbia - https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/255865854#map=15/49.2428/-123.2196 . It is designed at the level described for trunk road at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada:British_Columbia#Highways_and_provincial_roads, yet the OSM contributors have designated it as secondary highway.

I don't find this a "maddening" as you say, but then I feel we could adopt a more UK approach to the definition then a infrastructure/design POV.

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Stewart Russell <scruss at gmail.com<mailto:scruss at gmail.com>> wrote:

A trunk road is not necessarily divided. The limited access part means that it's not residential. It has to go from a town or city to another town or city. It predates or has lesser capacity than a motorway.

It's one of these maddening "know one when I see one" definitions that makes perfect sense in the UK but is difficult elsewhere.

Much of the Trans-Canada, f'rinstance, would be considered a trunk road.

Cheers
Stewart

_______________________________________________
Talk-ca mailing list
Talk-ca at openstreetmap.org<mailto:Talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ca/attachments/20160127/db92545e/attachment-0001.html>