[Talk-us] US highway classification

Nathan Edgars II neroute2 at gmail.com
Sun May 29 01:54:07 BST 2011


On 5/28/2011 8:37 PM, Nathan Mills wrote:
> On Sat, 28 May 2011 17:25:17 -0400, Nathan Edgars II wrote:
>
>>>> No, trunk is to primary as primary is to secondary.
>>>
>>> Except that it's not.
>>
>> It is in my criteria, which you're misrepresenting.
>
> You described your criteria, but did not explain how trunk is more
> appropriate than primary for a two lane rural highway between two
> small-to-tiny cities. If you use trunk for that, there is no way to
> describe (in a way that shows up on the tiles) a road which is not a
> motorway but is better than the typical rural highway.

There are many types of roads that it's not possible to describe. How do 
you tag an unpaved classified road so the map shows that it's unpaved 
(this is very common in the third world, but also occurs in extremely 
rural areas of the US)? You don't.
>
>> I also upgrade major state-numbered highways from secondary to
>> primary. This leaves more breathing room in secondary and tertiary for
>> the lesser roads.
>
> As makes sense if the highway is the most direct non-Interstate,
> non-trunk route between two regionally important cities. Why would trunk
> be used for the same thing? That's what I've been trying (apparently
> rather poorly) to get at.

I understand your assumption - that trunk is only to be used for surface 
expressways. I simply disagree.
>
> Whose route network a given highway is a part of seems to me to be a
> poor differentiator.
Agreed. It's simply one of many data points to be taken into account, 
just like (in my opinion) physical characteristics.



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