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

[Bradley White]

> Also language introduced by NE2 when he changed the wiki to justify his own national mass edit on the US highways.

If all this language was added unilaterally by NE2, can we find the
specific wiki edits that they made and roll them back? I'm on the same
page with Steve that describing how tagging currently *is* used and
debating over how tagging might be better used, should be kept
separate.

> Feels like conflating expressways and primaries.

Certainly, relative to current tag usage, which is why I'm debating
current tag usage. If 'highway' is supposed to, fundamentally, denote
importance (Proposed_features/Highway_key_voting_importance), it seems
to me that there's a big difference in importance between a highway
that connects population centers of ca. 10,000+ (current primary usage
as described in United_States_roads_tagging), and a highway connecting
population centers of ca. 100,000+ (Vegas to Boise, Reno to Redding,
etc), regardless of the physical condition of the road. Conversely, it
seems strange to use such a tag as high in the hierarchy as 'trunk'
for a fairly minor state highway that is otherwise 'secondary', simply
because the highway turns divided. I can sympathize with many mappers,
especially newer ones, not understanding what to do with 'trunk'. It
is probable that this 'strangeness' is due to rendering choices in
osm-carto, but it's been made clear that country-specific rendering is
logistically near-impossible and won't be happening. I've thought
about putting together a US-specific style that uses highway ref as a
factor in rendering, so that highways that are properly tagged per OSM
standards show up as one might "expect" them to on a US map. But I
certainly can't afford to host a tile server right now.

I'd be much more on-board with the 'trunk' = 'expressway' thing (been
halfway there for a bit) if the following happened:
- Removal of "important highway where no motorway exists" or
equivalent verbiage from wiki tagging guidelines. If this was added
unilaterally by one editor, it should be removed regardless.
- Rewriting 'trunk' section of US road tagging guidelines, with a
section on understanding the concept of access control, and including
multiple photographed examples of different kinds of expressways with
descriptions. I'd be happy to help contribute to this.
- Systematic review of 'primary' use in the US - if this is going to
mean 'nationally important road', there shouldn't be things like
nearly every state highway being tagged 'primary', or downtown areas
filled to the brim with 'primary' (Houston and LA as particularly
egregious examples), or 'primary' roads that almost exactly parallel
an interstate (the interstate is the primary road!). I have been
working on this in California for a while, but it usually quite
time-consuming - many roads have been inappropriately bumped up so
they cut through the TIGER mess, when in reality it's the TIGER mess
that needs to be cleaned up first.


> Feels like conflating expressways and primaries.