[Talk-us] Alaska Highway AK-2 tagging

[Anthony Costanzo]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 7:45 PM Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 6:35 PM Anthony Costanzo <acjames28 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> All of AK 2 between Fairbanks and the Canadian border is paved. I can
>> vouch for this personally.
>
> OK, so that's kinda putting more weight on the "primary" idea.  Is most of it a single carriageway freeway or a dual carriageway expressway?  It's
> been a long time since I've been there but i can't imagine it being more than your typical middle-of-nowhere two-lane uncontrolled single
> carriageway today.  If that's the case, I feel like primary is the highest it should be, and we should be considering more whether or not such a road
> rises to primary instead of secondary (the lowest it should be, given it's part of the primary state highway network in Alaska).

Most of it is uncontrolled two-lane single carriageway.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether the road is tagged as trunk
or primary based on its own merits, however I do think the tags for
the single-carriageway parts of AK 2 and YT 1 (and BC 97 for that
matter) should match, whichever it is. These roads are functionally
equivalent and physically similar. Given how these and other major
single-carriageway roads in northern and western Canada are tagged as
Trunk, tagging AK 2 as such would seem to be the option that defers to
regional precedent.