[OSM-talk] [tagging] updated RFC: Highway administrative and physical descriptions
Alex Mauer
hawke at hawkesnest.net
Tue Feb 19 20:31:13 GMT 2008
Lester Caine wrote:
>> 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.
>
> The basic problem is the lack of any clarity between countries on road
> definitions. The 'designation' of a road adds little to knowledge of its
> structure in the UK some main A roads have single lane passing places and 10
> MPH speed limits while others are much higher quality than most motorways.
> Just keep the road designation as it reference number and then worry about
> such things as 3 4 or 5 lanes each way without reference to 'different types
> of motorway'.
But is there any easy/consistent way to determine whether a road is a
"national route", "regional route", "county route" or something similar
to that, in the UK?
based upon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_road_numbering_scheme it
seems to me that A roads correspond with a national route, and B with a
regional route.
From comments on the proposal, germany's "Bundesstrasse",
"Staatsstrasse", "Kreisstrasse" (machine translation: "Federal street",
"state street" and "circle street") -- at least the first two correspond
very nicely, and the concept matches nicely overall.
And a polish commenter says "There are four categories:
* state, classes A, S, GP and sometimes G
* voivodship, classes G, Z, sometimes GP
* powiat (county), classes G, Z, sometimes L
* gmina (commune), classes L, D, sometimes Z"
Again, it fits very well (national/regional/county/local)
Specific terminology for the third level isn't important, and if a level
between region and county is found to be necessary somewhere (China?),
that can easily be added.
>
> I don't think it applies so much elsewhere - but UK motorways have no
> pedestrian access - does the same apply on any American routes?
>
Yep, same thing for interstates in the US. I'm not sure whether it's
the case for the "almost motorway/interstate" situation.
-Alex Mauer "hawke"
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