[Talk-us] Update on potential highway classification reform

[Adam Franco]

Thanks, Martijn.

> What do you expect to happen next? Do you plan to have a wiki vote like
> people do on tagging? When is the discussion "concluded"? And after that,
> what do you want to happen with the existing classifications? Will you be
> proposing some sort of organized editing to update important roads
> throughout the country?
>
While I'm open to a wiki vote I don't know that it is necessary for this
update to the US-specific and state-specific roadway classification wiki
pages and starting some sort of organized update. That said, if US mappers
reading this mailing list would like to see a vote to confirm consensus,
then I won't stand in the way of it.

Whatever the trigger is for a "conclusion of discussion" I think the next
step would be to update the US wiki pages with the new classification
guidance, copy in the existing State drafts to their respective pages, and
begin working on guidance for other states. In parallel with that last step
would be to begin updating the classification in the states where guidance
has been prepared.

> Another thing that I am missing is attention to the lower road classes. I
> have an accepted lightning talk at State of the Map this summer that is
> entitled "Bye Bye Unclassified"[0]. From that title, you should be able to
> discern what that will be about :) I am on the fence about including lower
> road classes in this discussion, because the topic is already so broad and
> controversial. On the other hand, now that we have everyone's eyes and ears
> on this topic, it seems like a missed opportunity to not also give some
> thought to those lower road classes. Right now, there is just a short
> paragraph about "Secondary and lower". I have some specific ideas about
> simplifying that aspect of road classification, and I can extend that
> section, if you want.
>
Secondary and lower classes (including unclassified) have come up a lot in
our discussions. I'm personally pretty attached to using unclassified as
"class-6 of 7 in importance". ;-) I live in an area with many small and
tiny roads that provide [sometimes poor] interconnections between larger
roads but which are not part of any residential area and may not have any
abutters. I have lots of thoughts on how to disambiguate between the lowest
classes and have been experimenting with the idea of evaluating the ratio
of traffic destined to a road's abutting properties versus through traffic
from elsewhere as a distinguishing metric: For example (with a wild guess
at ratios):

   - Less than 33% of traffic is to abutters (more than 67% through
   traffic) ==> tertiary
   - 33% to 67% of traffic is to abutters (close to equal destination and
   through traffic) ==> unclassified
   - More than 67% of traffic is to abutters (less than 33% through
   traffic) ==> residential

All that said, while I'd love to dig into those lower classifications more
and have those discussions in full, they don't have the same national and
regional impact as the classification of larger roads and I'd hate to get
sidetracked in a way that prevents consensus on the motorway/trunk/primary
levels. I feel that if we can get those top levels sorted out then the
lower levels will begin to make a lot more sense.

Cheers,
Adam
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