[Talk-us] Mass Change of Highway Classification in Larimer County Colorado

[MoiraPrime]

First time chiming in on a mailing list entry ever but given the debate about trunks is back I would like to throw in my perspective.

I'm very much on the bandwagon that road importance is the key factor for road classification, and that the only road classification that really indicates road quality is motorway.

Also I find the switching back and forth between primary/trunk in several parts of the south to be... somewhat silly. If a road is being upgraded to 4 lanes for example, then clearly the state sees it as important enough to do so, and thus even though it's not fully 4 lanes, the entire section should be trunk for continuity's sake? There's a lot of this mess in Alabama, where the state is decades behind its neighbor Mississippi in regards to upgrading it's very important US highways. US-84 is slowly being upgraded in many parts, US-82 as well, and US-98 is currently in a multi-decade long process to completely bypass the last section of bloody 98.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 at 5:53 PM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:

> Oh, well, if we're going by the NHS, it's time to retag a lot of
> 

> roads in the midwest that aren't even paved as trunk... seriously the
> 

> NHS is even more arbitrary than just mapping trunk to expressways and
> 

> then piecing things together based on characteristics.
> 

> On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 5:10 PM Evin Fairchild evindfair at gmail.com wrote:
> 

> > But the wiki clearly states that the trunk tag has to do with importance rather than physical characteristics. The NHS defines roads that are the most important. Heck, in most states the speed you can drive on a divided highway is the same as on most straight two lane roads.
> > 

> > It's not classification creep to define the most important non-freeway roads as trunk. If you have an authoritative source as a basis for the trunk designation, you're not going to have to worry about people tagging roads between two small towns as trunk. You can simply explain to the person that that road isn't in the NHS, politely ask them to change it back, and move on with your life.
> > 

> > -Evin
> > 

> > On Tue, May 4, 2021, 2:55 PM Paul Johnson baloo at ursamundi.org wrote:
> > 

> > > On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 4:28 PM Evin Fairchild evindfair at gmail.com wrote:
> > > 

> > > > I'd say it's pretty well connected given the terrain. In Colorado, there are several east-west roads across the Rockies aside from I-70. These roads are generally pretty straight and fast, something that can't be said for many roads in the Appalachians (aside from the ADHS corridors), and that contributes to the isolation of much of Appalachia.
> > > > 

> > > > Personally, I'm in agreement with Brian that continuity is important. I find it kind of visually jarring when roads change back and forth between trunk and primary when they switch between being divided to undivided.
> > > 

> > > I think it reflects the ground truth as it moves between expressway
> > > 

> > > and an ordinary highway.
> > > 

> > > > It seems that the trunk thing keeps coming up over and over again and we can never come to an agreement over what roads should be tagged as trunk. So I would like to propose that we tag as trunk any road that is part of the National Highway System, which is a network of roads that includes the Interstate Highway System as well as other roads that are "important to the nation’s economy, defense, and mobility." See link below:
> > > 

> > > Against this. I think the existing practice, where trunk is
> > > 

> > > equivalent to expressways as they exist in the US: motorway-like, but
> > > 

> > > not quite there. So like a single carriageway that is limited and
> > > 

> > > controlled access, or a dual carriageway that is a mix of controlled
> > > 

> > > and uncontrolled access and high speed, works sufficiently well. Plus
> > > 

> > > do we really want to fall into the typical American stereotype of
> > > 

> > > exaggerating what we are on something like this? Let's avoid upward
> > > 

> > > classification creep.
> 

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> 

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> 

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