[Talk-us] Historic 66 as highway=trunk in OK

[stevea]

Hi Paul, Hi Volker, Hi talk-us:

The topic begs the question as to what such (usually very) old, poor-condition (where they ARE poor) roads should be tagged (we limit ourselves to US roads here because this is talk-us), and at what granularity.  (Volker COULD do detailed tagging, but I hear loud and clear he prefers high-granularity tagging, as do I, though we all recognize how tedious this can be).  And "old 66" is a quintessential example, many segments are a century old or older:  it is known as "the Mother road" by many.  BTW, many public agencies under the umbrella of Southern California Association of Governments are working on developing USBR 66 in California for cyclists (the route number choice is no coincidence as some alignments follow the old Mother road).  This was actually in OSM as an early proposed route, but was removed to conform to USBRS proposed route conventions.  If/as USBR 66 turns into a Caltrans (DOT) route proposal to AASHTO, OSM will re-enter these data.  It makes sense to pay close attention to the underlying infrastructure tagging (tertiary, surface, smoothness...) as we do so since these are important to cyclists.

A case can be made for highway=trunk (for connectivity reasons) yet I do resonate with "secondary at best" for such old, poor roads.  Tagging highway=trunk is about as high a classification as the very best portions of this road will ever get, and only on its highest-speed segments which are divided.  This implies highway=tertiary (MAYBE secondary) where the road is NOT dual carriageway, as highway=trunk in the USA means "with a barrier or median separating each direction of traffic" (truly dual carriageway).  Yes, it is appropriate to tag highway=secondary on some segments, I believe these to be in the minority compared to tertiary (which likely makes up the majority of what remains of this route in many states).

I also say including a surface=* tag is important, so is a smoothness=* tag (though that has its controversies) where this is known or meets / falls below value intermediate (or so).

Let's agree that simply tagging highway=trunk is often incorrect when dual carriageways of highway=tertiary with accurate surface=* (and sure, smoothness=*) tags would be much more accurate and preferred.

Are there any fresh, eager readers of this list who wish to delve into a fairly tedious sub-project in OSM:  tagging "their" portion of 66 (and its many remnants, bypasses, used-to-be-segments...) that they know?  The right classifications (as they render) and surface=* and smoothness=* tagging (though, they do not render) would be very welcome ongoing improvements to our fine project.  It could be a state-at-a-time effort to drum up OSM community, it could become a "WikiProject" (though that concept seems to have fuzzied as of late), it could be a topic at Meetups or Mapping Parties in the appropriate geographical venues...it seems like a good fit to build a kernel of effort to "get this right."  May we see better 66 tagging going forward!

SteveA
California