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

[stevea]

On Aug 28, 2019, at 6:16 PM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
> So, the segment in question given in the example to me (I don't think the response was intended only for me, so I'm not quoting the whole thing) is https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/14678570/.  OpenStreetCam has footage from November 2018 on it at https://openstreetcam.org/details/1305935/3747/track-info, showing it's a pretty typical Oklahoma expressway, 55 MPH speed limit for most of it, slowing towards its eastern end, and is currently a part of OK 66.

Looks like trunk, tagged as trunk.  Again, I'm not saying every road should be downgraded from trunk, merely those which are not trunk, and there certainly are some, in Oklahoma, California, as well as many other states along the alignment(s).

> I think a better argument for downgrading from trunk exists in Southern California if it hasn't been downgraded already.  There's some decent chunks east of Indio in San Bernardino County off the top of my head that were clearly constructed as trunks, have since left Caltrans inventory and are now county roads, and SB County has just let one side of the road rot off, running both directions undivided on the other (usually the former westbound-only carriageway, from memory, as last I drove it I was going eastbound, the center divider was on my right, and it looked like the other side hadn't been usable for at least a decade with weeds and huge cracks growing out of the abandoned carriageway).

Yes, these are definitely downgradable from trunk.  While JOSM complains about the tag, highway=road could be used temporarily, though the "open" (to vehicular traffic) might end up being tagged highway=tertiary, the weedy, abandoned road likely gets abandoned:highway=unclassified.  I'm not sure if/how the latter renders, so it might "look weird,"  but that wouldn't be the first time we tag accurately and think "that looks weird."  If it is accurate tagging, so be it (how it renders).

> 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 could see secondary or tertiary for the non-expressway portions (though most of it is state highway, so that would be secondary at lowest for the parts that are currently part of state highways).  But it does have among the longest portions of still-extant expressway portions, mostly still in the state highway inventory here in Oklahoma.

California has state highways which are highway=tertiary (one example is Skyline Drive / Hwy 35 in the Santa Cruz Mountains), though I've driven this many times and there is one segment which is essentially residential:  the road is essentially single-lane (maybe ten feet / 3 m wide), is quite sinuous, has a "basic speed law" (drive only as fast as is safe) of approximately 15 MPH (narrow, windy) and has family (live-on) farms on either side of it;  https://www.osm.org/way/37438761.  I entertain good arguments for either highway=residential or highway=unclassified on this segment, as highway=tertiary seems seriously over-generous.  Yet, it is a state highway, linking, say, the mountain village of La Honda with Bear Creek Road access to (state) Highway 17, the major artery over the central portion of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

> 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).
> 
> I think it's important to disconnect the idea of surface=* and smoothness=* from highway=* in most cases.  If surface and smoothness factored into it, that really opens up I 5 in Portland until relatively recently (like, before about 2013) to question it's motorway status, as it's 50 and 55 MPH speed limits being way too fast without damaging tires on the potholes or hydroplaning the ruts.

I can see something being tagged highway=motorway and smoothness=intermediate (or even worse), if they describe that Oregon segment of I-5 before it was re-paved.  I think that if a smoothness=intermediate or smoothness=bad tag exists, it is there for good reason.

> 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.
> 
> Eeeeh, that's gonna be a hard sell for the most part, most Oklahoma expressways are built like this as are parts of Interstate freeways, with the only real difference between the two being at-grade intersections and limited driveways (as opposed to getting to install driveways virtually anywhere you want on it).  Indian Nation Turnpike is a great example of this.  Save for being fully controlled access from the get-go meriting a motorway tag, it's of substantially the same design and in about the same condition as the expressway portions of 66.   https://openstreetcam.org/details/1119877/3443/track-info

So, trunk is wrong?  Your link appears to display an old road, re-paved many times, but I wouldn't call it a bad road, maybe intermediate or good.

> When there's more driveways, it either narrows and becomes a boulevard (like US 75 does for a couple kilometers in Okmulgee, https://openstreetcam.org/details/1119877/803/track-info;

If but for the driveway, that looks like trunk, but the driveway makes me say primary or secondary.

> or US 64 does entering Muskogee, https://openstreetcam.org/details/1366842/204/track-info)

Nice example of a similar (to above) transitioning to / from "median divided road" to "simply double-yellow line divided" (no median).  I don't think this is trunk, again, depending on daily traffic and speeds, I'd say primary or secondary here, but not trunk.

> or frontages are added to wrangle driveway traffic with connections to and from the expressway and the frontage being closer in frequency to what you would get for driveways in somewhat rural expressways (for example, the George Nigh Expressway in McAlester, https://openstreetcam.org/details/48220/5369/track-info), 

Here, driveways make me want to hold my nose at trunk (though it otherwise looks like one), so again, primary if speeds and ADT #s (daily average traffic counts) warrant it, otherwise, secondary.  (Though, large 18-wheelers / semis hauling discourages me from saying secondary).

> or they get upgraded to a freeway (for example, Skelly Drive/Skelly Bypass in Tulsa, where the original drive's driveways, at least on properties that weren't bulldozed 8 years ago when the freeway was last widened, attach to the frontages, https://openstreetcam.org/details/53572/5864/track-info).

With K-rail median and eight lanes, this looks like motorway or trunk, depending on controlled access (or not).  Though, what is that off to the right?  A bicycle track?

While it can be interesting and even entertaining to "shoot fish in a barrel" like this, (express our tagging opinions with little consequence), I think the main reason we do this (as Joseph's later post leans towards) we are, in a sense, trying to reach sane consensus by having these discussions.  This is made somewhat more difficult (especially for old-time mappers like me who have been around for most of the project's history) by tagging evolving.  For example, I'm unfamiliar with Joseph's tagging of expressway=yes (I'm studying it now), though I have seen motorroad=yes (and understand why it is a good tag that should be used where applicable).

SteveA