[Talk-us] US highway classification

[Anthony]

On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 10:49 PM, Nathan Mills <nathan at nwacg.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 28 May 2011 22:39:51 -0400, Anthony wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 9:47 PM, Nathan Mills <nathan at nwacg.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Primary means (at least according to most of the wiki pages)
>>> the primary non-motorway route between two cities.
>>
>> Any wiki pages that say that are clearly wrong.  Trunk is the primary
>> non-motorway route between two cities.  Yes, it's dumb terminology,
>> but it's too late to fix that.
>
> If it were clearly wrong, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

It is, and we are.

>>> Another example is US-71 between Fort Smith and Texarkana. It is in fact
>>> the
>>> fastest route between Fort Smith and Texarkana, but it is terribly slow
>>> going. The fact that it is the fastest route between those two regionally
>>> important cities is adequately described by primary. Why, then, are we
>>> wasting trunk on something like that?
>>
>> Do you agree that a road which would be a trunk in one area of the
>> world might not be a trunk in another area?  Or do I first have to
>> convince you of that?
>
> I said as much previously. Obviously, I'm only considering the US, given
> that this is talk-us.

Right, which leads to my next question.  Do you agree that a road
which would be a trunk in one area of the US might not be a trunk in
another area?

Grove Hill, Alabama, and New York City, New York don't exactly have
very much in common.

> I guess I'm just failing to see what use trunk is if it's essentially interchangeable with primary.

It's not essentially interchangeable with primary.

On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Nathan Mills <nathan at nwacg.net> wrote:
>> You agree that if a router has two possible roads to take between two
>> cities, and one is a trunk, and one is a primary, and all other things
>> are equal, that the router should choose the trunk, right?  Doesn't
>> that make trunk, by definition, the primary non-motorway route between
>> two cities?
>
> Only if trunk has a meaning that implies that a road tagged trunk is somehow
> better than a road tagged primary, which it apparently does not, at least in
> some people's minds.

So no, routers shouldn't choose trunk over primary, all other things
being equal?

> If you're going to waste trunk on curvy two lane roads,
> a router may as well use distance or maxspeed as a better metric.

We're assuming maxspeed isn't present.

So, if the primary road is 2 inches shorter than the trunk, the router
should take the primary?

And the reasoning for this is, to spite the people who "wasted" trunk
on curvy two lane roads (when there was nothing better in a 50 mile
radius)?

Instead of giving me hypothetical if..then answers, can you give me a
straightforward answer?