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

[Jherome Miguel]

Forcing classifications based solely on their connectivity between
> population centres certainly won't work. The construction is just as much a
> factor in determining the classification. Belleville Street in downtown
> Victoria is officially part of BC 17 linking to a ferry to the US, but I
> personally think it's already too high at primary (especially between
> Menzies and the ferry terminal). Upgrading it even further to trunk would
> be absurd.
>

Secondary? Do more travellers between Victoria and Port Angeles go through
the mainland to cross into either BC or Washington state than taking the
car ferry? Your take on BC 17 may also be applicable on how to deal with
the A-5–Highway 417 connection in Ottawa-Gatineau. NHS designates several
Ottawa streets as core routes, but there is also the thing to avoid
downtowns due to things like congestion.

On my cases which I suggest to be be promoted but do not form a NHS
corridor, e.g. Red Deer-Saskatoon, most of the possible routings are on
two-lanes, but there may be not a lot of motorist services on the stopovers
for them to be a viable trunk routing. The shortest possible route is via
Alberta Highways 11 and 12, and Saskatchewan Highways 51 and 14, but parts
of Highway 51 are still gravel. Via Alberta Highway 13 and Saskatchewan
Hjgbway 14, there are large enough cities with a good deal of motorist
services on the Alberta side, Wetaskiwin and Camrose, but on the remainder,
it's mostly small towns. Well, the main Calgary-Saskatoon link is mostly
two-lane, Alberta Highway 9 and Saskatchewan Highway 7, but there have been
twinning work on the Saskatchewan side which can be a convincing case for a
trunk, and major stopovers, Drumheller and Kindersley have a decent number
of motorist services. Lots of trunk routes in the Prairies often are
twinned or have frequent passing lanes, but in Eastern Canada, these are
often two-lanes outside of urban areas.


> I think it might be time to break the link between NHS and trunk, because
> forcing that link leads to some clear misclassifications. One example that
> was provided is the portion of BC 99 from Whistler to Lillooet. Even though
> it's designated as part of the NHS, trunk is far too high of a
> classification for much of it. Looking specifically at the Duffey Lake Road
> portion from Pemberton to Lillooet, even the current primary classification
> based on it being a numbered highway is probably generous. It's a 60 km/h,
> winding, two-lane road that's seldom-traveled and often considered a
> dangerous route. Heck, it has its own page on the website
> dangerousroads.org
> <https://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/canada/10859-duffey-lake-road,-a-great-summer-drive-in-bc.html>!
> Trunk would mislead users as to both the importance and construction of
> this road in the BC highway network. Conversely, there are roads that
> aren't part of the NHS, but for which a case could be made that trunk would
> be the most appropriate tag. For example, I hadn't considered it before,
> but it might indeed make sense for Saanich Road between BC 1 and BC 17 to
> be trunk, based both on its construction and connective importance.
>

On BC 99, I'll agree downgrading it north of Vancouver, but with addition
of expressway=yes tag for the divided segments up to Squamish. I did test
routing between Vancouver and some point north, e.g. Quesnel, Prince
George, Dawson Creek, and the preferred route is through BC 1 and the
Cariboo, not BC 99.

For Saanich Road between BC 1 and BC 17, we can give it a go.

On decoupling trunk from NHS core routes, yes, but would still look into
extending trunk, especially in routes that can be deemed critical links
between key regional cities within here in Canada as well as the US. Also
here again is the need to match changes here with those in the US. Some US
trunks – both current and proposed – under their new scheme matches ours at
the border, but some currently don't (e.g. Ontario Highway 138 around
Cornwall, which connects with NY 37, which I mentioned earlier). Some US
mappers have already reached out to upgrade the Canadian end (e.g. when US
95 from Idaho was promoted to trunk, they also promoted a part of BC 95 to
maintain connectivity and continuity on the Canadian side.)

>

> Kudos to Jherome for trying to tackle such a task and putting so much
> effort into the wiki pages, though I think it might be putting the cart
> before the horse. While it seems like there's some support for parts of the
> proposal, it doesn't seem like there's widespread support for the overall
> plan. I think it would be better to identify what issues there are that
> contributors generally agree could be improved, and then focus on dealing
> with those. That could grow into a provincial or national highway
> reclassification plan, or it could end up being just some tweaking of a few
> areas.
>

We follow a similar approach as with the US mappers, and it's at the
provincial level (the Territories won't need much tweaking). Prepare draft,
gain community buy-in, complete documentation, and perform the changes to
the main map.
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