[Talk-us] US highway classification

[Nathan Mills]

 On Sun, 29 May 2011 01:00:25 -0400, Nathan Edgars II wrote:
> On 5/29/2011 12:37 AM, Nathan Mills wrote:
>> US-441 between St. Cloud and Yeehaw Junction could easily be trunk 
>> by
>> NE2's definition
> Nope, since any through traffic will be on the Turnpike. US 441
> serves mainly only local and toll-avoiding traffic, and the latter is
> better-off cutting east to I-95 via US 192.

 It's actually faster to take 441 to Yeehaw and get on the turnpike 
 there when traveling from eastern and southeastern Orlando to points 
 south of Port St. Lucie. Once again, this is a drive I take 
 semi-regularly. Similarly, from northeast Orlando out to Cocoa, 520 is 
 faster than slogging all the way down to 528 on 417, although almost 
 nobody goes that way. (or at least they didn't when I was driving it 
 somewhat regularly..it's been some years at this point)

 On all the roads I've mentioned until this post (exclusive of US-71), 
 most of the traffic seemed to be local and there was very little 
 traffic, local or through. So that's not really something you can point 
 to to say "aha, this should be trunk because it's an important through 
 route" on the particular roads I'm discussing. I don't claim to know 
 about roads I haven't personally driven since I haven't actually been on 
 them. If you can divine from the Internet that a given road has lots of 
 through traffic, that's fantastic for you.

 Speaking of misclassification around Orlando, why on did you make 
 Alafaya Trail south of Curry Ford primary? Even with the extension 
 (Innovation way) to 528, it's still mostly local traffic. Curry Ford and 
 Lake Underhill are much more important (and busy) roads in that part of 
 Orlando and carry more through traffic. That may change if they ever get 
 the 2 lane segment 4 laned, but that hasn't happened yet, unless it was 
 the fastest construction project evar. (I have friends that live in 
 Stoneybrook whom I visit at least once a year; last time was admittedly 
 last Christmas. I can only put so many miles on the car every year :P)

 On Sun, 29 May 2011 01:16:17 -0400, Nathan Edgars II wrote:

> Try expressway=yes or access_control=partial. But make sure it's an
> expressway, not just a four-lane with unlimited driveway access. You
> may have to look through DOT records to find out which one it is.

 I don't think most road map users care whether it's a literal 
 expressway in the sense of limited access or not, so long as it is 
 practically-speaking indistinguishable from an actual limited access 
 road. This is why I'm agitating for a tag that captures that use. More 
 technical tagging is, of course, quite welcome, but we need a way to 
 represent something as basic as this on the map. I think the easiest way 
 is to use the trunk tag because I don't see the way you're using it as 
 particularly useful since the same information could be conveyed with 
 primary, even if a nearby road has to be demoted to secondary, as most 
 state highways already are or should be, IMO.