[Talk-us] Trunk

[Mark Wagner]

On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:40:16 -0700
Bradley White <theangrytomato at gmail.com> wrote:

> If we can determine importance (which is what the 'highway=' tag
> fundamentally represents per the wiki) solely by what's on the ground,
> why not just tag what's physically there, ditch the 'highway' tag
> altogether, and let the renders handle it with their own algorithms?

Because we can't.

WA-290 at Starr Road is two paved lanes wide, with 12-foot lanes and
4-foot paved shoulders.  It has a speed limit of 45 mph.

WA-261 at Lyons Ferry Fish Hatchery is two paved lanes wide, with
11-foot lanes and 4-foot paved shoulders.  It has a speed limit of 50
mph.

Two very similar-looking roads, so they should have similar
classifications, right?  WA-261 runs from nowhere much to nowhere
much, and sees maybe 300 vehicles a day.  In contrast, WA-290 is the
other major route between the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene metropolitan
areas (the main route is the interstate), and sees 13,000 vehicles a
day go by.  If you omitted WA-261 from a map, almost nobody would
notice.  If you omitted WA-290, people would discard your map as
useless.

I've driven both roads, and they *feel* very different.  But it's not a
difference that I can put into numbers -- at least, not without putting
a traffic counter out for a few days.

-- 
Mark