[OSM-talk] Advanced highway tagging

[Andy Allan]

On Nov 21, 2007 7:17 PM, Andrew MacKinnon <andrewpmk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Motorways are pretty much always rendered consistently, the exception
> being motorways (or roads built to a standard approaching motorways)
> which are designated as something lower, like an A road.

Which then makes them *not* a motorway, hence them not rendering the
same as motorways.

> I was
> thinking more along the lines of more minor roads, such as urban
> four-lane and two-lane arterials and collector roads. Google Maps (and
> similar services) decides which to call "major" based on what seems to
> be somewhat arbitrary criteria, in order to make the map easier to
> read - e.g. some major two-lane roads are coloured yellow by Google
> Maps, while others (which in some cases are of similar importance) are
> coloured white. For example, in Kingston, Canada, Google Maps colours
> King Street yellow, but Union Street, a road with similar traffic
> levels, is coloured white - arbitrarily.

How do you know this is arbitrary? Are you sure they aren't being
completely objective with their road-classifications? You mention
things like lane count, "importance", traffic levels - none of which
are taken into account when rendering in OpenStreetMap. What makes you
think a pair of similar roads would be rendered the same in Google? If
one was a "State Highway" and the other a "Municipal through route"
(or whatever) I'd *expect* them to look different.

You seem to be picking two roads which you think are similar using
your selection of criteria, ignoring the government classifcation of
the roads, and then declaring it "arbitrary" when they are rendered
differently from one another.

So I'm confused, and I'm going to leave it there - we're obviously not
getting anywhere with this.

Thanks,
Andy