[Talk-us] Motorway vs trunk

[Alan Mintz]

At 2010-02-26 12:50, Richard Welty wrote:
>On 2/26/10 3:14 PM, Nakor Osm wrote:
> > What is the distinction made between trunk and motorways for tagging
> > in the US. As an example should this portion of US41 (
> > http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=41.8967&lon=-87.6177&zoom=14
> > <http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=41.8967&lon=-87.6177&zoom=14> ) be
> > a motorway or a trunk?
>for all practical purposes, a trunk is a motorway-wannabe, but with
>grade level crossings of
>some sort, either with stop signs for the lesser roads, or traffic
>lights. you generally won't
>see driveways or businesses directly on trunks, there will often be
>frontage roads for that.

Agreed. IMO, what downgrades a motorway to a trunk is the presence of 
anything that stops traffic on the main roadway for intersecting traffic 
(signals, stop signs, or yield signs). Really, anything more than just a 
very occasional road intersection that does not occur via ramps, or 
driveway, should be grounds to call it a trunk (or even lower).

In the example, I'd call US41 trunk from Monroe St down to Waldron Dr, and 
motorway above and below that (at least for the area I looked at), simply 
based on the appearance of ramp-style intersections vs. 
traffic-signal-controlled perpendicular intersections. I'm guessing that 
speed limits would give further justification.

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>