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

[Paul Johnson]

On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 7:59 PM Evin Fairchild <evindfair at gmail.com> wrote:
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> On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 5:37 PM Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
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>> On Tue, May 4, 2021, 18:40 Evin Fairchild <evindfair at gmail.com> wrote:
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>>> No, we only care about physical characteristics when it comes to motorways. According to the wiki, *only* motorways are defined by physical characteristics; everything from trunk on down is defined by importance.
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>> The wiki should be documenting how we map things, not prescribing how we map things.  If that's what the wiki says, it's wrong and neesa to be fixed.
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> I'd say it's a bit of both. It documents consensus on how things are mapped so that when people disagree on tagging, you can refer to what the wiki says in order to settle the dispute.
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> The wiki page for the highway=* (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway#Assumptions) is where it says that only motorways are defined by physical characteristics; I must note that this is a worldwide definition, not a US definition. It says "Only highway=motorway and highway=motorway_link indicate quality. Other road types, from trunk to tertiary to residential, service, path, footway, cycleway or track, do not imply anything about road quality, only importance and intended main use."
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> This was based upon a discussion that took place in 2009. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Highway_key_voting_importance I'm not aware of anyone challenging this.

Sure, and I think folks would find it hard to argue that a state
expressway is generally going to be of greater importance to most
people than a two lane US highway.  That certainly seemed to be the CW
at the time.