[OSM-talk] [tagging] updated RFC: Highway administrative and physical descriptions

Alex Mauer hawke at hawkesnest.net
Tue Feb 19 16:40:20 GMT 2008


Lester Caine wrote:
> Alex Mauer wrote:
>> I've added a decision tree to the physical section of the page, as well 
>> as removed the "boulevard" designation (since it didn't really add much)
>>
>> I'd like to have some more comments from the UK and german end, as to 
>> whether or not A and B roads (and others?) fit into the highway:admin 
>> scheme.
>>
>> Again, the proposal location is:
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Highway_administrative_and_physical_descriptions
> 
> :admin is appropriate for the UK - but not laid out as it is at present. 
> Motorways may be under different administration to the 'Highways Agency' and 
> the 'Highways Agency' is also responsible for other main roads, but private 
> companies will actually be responsible for managing those roads.
> Basically WHO admins a road is a bit of a lottery, so trying to create a 
> simple list as currently proposed is wrong for the UK :( :admin SHOULD be the 
> company responsible for maintaining the road.

Hmm, that's not what I was going for.  I was going for the 
"administrative designation" of the road (that is, M, A, B [I gather] in 
the UK, I-, US, [state abbrev] in the US) .  In the US this is closely 
tied to who maintains it.  In Europe it seems to be much more closely 
tied to its physical characteristics, and varies wildly from country to 
country.

> :physical simply adds complications without actually fixing anything. Trying 
> to add _almost and _twolane does not provide ANY useful information, and a UK 
> dual_carriageway is unlikely to have shoulders. Infact HAVING hard shoulders 
> is part of the definition that makes it a motorway, and may result in it being 
> A...(M) - OK a motorway_almost except that the A1(M) has three lanes in areas.
> So it does not fit the decision tree and if it does not have two lanes why is 
> it a (motorway_twolane) ? it's motorway_singlelane but then it would probably 
> not be a motorway )

OK, I made some corrections; I realized that I was taking the 
designation into account in the decision of "motorway" vs. 
"motorway_almost" (because in the US that's the only way to tell/be sure)

If "physical" adds complications without fixing anything, then it itself 
needs to be modified to cover the situations that it doesn't.

What kind of physical roads are not covered by highway:physical?

Many people are saying things like "just use highway as-is", but that's 
really not tenable.  "trunk" (and even "primary", "secondary", 
"tertiary" or "A","B","C") says nothing whatever about the physical 
characteristics of the road.  And then anywhere below those 
designations, there's no description of the physical characteristics of 
the road.

> Yes I know I should put this on the talk page - but I can't get in at the 
> moment :(

Meh, mailing lists are better for discussion anyway.





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