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

[Henry Armitage]

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On Thu, Feb 10, 2022 at 4:34 PM Jherome Miguel <jheromemiguel at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> 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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