[Talk-ca] Proposed changes to road classification and related stuff

[Jarek Piórkowski]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 at 16:06, Jherome Miguel <jheromemiguel at gmail.com> wrote:
> As mappers down in the United States have been slowly adapting a new classification scheme, especially in regard to motorway and trunk classes, I would also like to propose some changes to Canadian road classification to coordinate with the changes being proposed and undertaken south of the border. This primarily deals with motorway and trunk classes. There will be little changes, but this will close gaps in highway networks around the border areas, which I have been noticing (e.g. in Cornwall and Sault Ste. Marie).
>
> - Motorway guidelines will be the same, but to add considerations for exceptions and borderline cases
> - Trunk meaning will expanded to be no longer just the NHS core routes, the commonly used definition as of now, to include other routes between identified major population centres. The trunk network will be largely the same, but with additions in certain provinces, usually to coordinate with trunk reclassification work being done south of the border.

Sounds alright. Though devil will be in details.

> Definition of primary, secondary and below will remain largely unchanged:
>
> - Primary: Roads connecting other large settlements, usually being major provincial highways unless trunk or motorway. In dense urban areas, these are generally major arteries in the suburbs, usually part of a provincial highway or a former one, but not necessarily.
> - Secondary: Minor highways in rural areas (usually secondary provincial highways, or the county/regional roads of southern Ontario). In urban areas, most other arterials.
> - Tertiary: In urban areas, collector streets. In rural areas, other through roads that aren't highways, usually linking smaller settlements not served by the highway network.

Sounds alright.

Defining these firmly might be a challenge. In absence of a
mostly-comprehensive and mostly-sensible national (or in Ontario,
provincial) standard for classification, we might ultimately have to
go by feel to usefully classify the roads.

> Since some of the proposed reclassifications will result in an uncoupling of official highway class from OSM class, I would like to bring up again introducing abbreviations to ref= values for highways like those in the US. Many renderers use the underlying classification to determine what shield will be used, but the presence of cases such as Ontario regional and country roads being tagged primary as well as the aforementioned uncoupling of OSM road class from official classification calls this need to do it, even it has been opposed on various grounds.

I disagree with this. If you need to know who owns a road, parse the
route relation's network=* tag.

Cheers,
--Jarek