[Talk-us] proposed first principles for United States road tagging

[Paul Johnson]

On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:40:47 -0500, Anthony wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:36 AM, Anthony
> <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> 
>> The important, worldwide criteria that I'd expect is this: *Motorways
>> are exclusive to motor vehicle traffic. *trunks are the most important
>> roads in a geographic area which aren't motorways.
>>
>>
> As a corollary to this, Alaska should have several motorway and/or trunk
> roads, regardless of whether or not they are interstates, fake
> interstates, paved, unpaved, divided, undivided, etc.

That would violate the basic definition of the word "motorway" as it is 
commonly understood in the English language.  
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/motorway

> I would assume they are paved, and I would assume they connect between 
> the major cities in Alaska and/or with major cities in Canada.  But I
> have no idea what other criteria they might meet.  I'm sure someone 
> more familiar with Alaska can do so.

There's at least one motorway in Alaska, though it's not particularly 
long.  There's not exactly the population density or climate to really 
make building such a large highway possible outside all but the largest 
cities.