[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap routing service

[Lambertus]

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Lambertus wrote:
> 
>> Perhaps an inventory of the countries that allow cyclists on trunks and 
>> motorways has to be created.
> 
> Here you assume that "trunk" is a well defined concept.  But it 
> isn't.
Maybe I should have written 'allow or deny access...', that's what I 
meant: a list of default features for each country for each road type 
found in the map_features even if it's not used.

> There are no roads in Scandinavia that are called "trunk" 
> roads.  So we have to invent our own understanding of when to use 
> this label. Unfortunately, the Finns and Norwegians made a 
> different interpretation than the Swedes.  So at some zoom levels, 
> it looks as if Norway and Finland are full of green trunk roads,
> while Sweden is a country with very few roads.  Because we labeled 
> those roads as "primary", which are not rendered at that zoom 
> level.
> 
> I think we should change all Swedish "riksväg" roads from primary 
> to trunk, to match the definition used for Norway and Finland, and 
> to make the map of Sweden look less empty at some zoom levels.
> 
Here the dogma 'Don't change the tagging just to get it rendered' 
applies :-)

I think it would be better to judge the roads on what their function is 
and try to correlate those roads to the map features page by their 
description. But this may well be that perhaps some ways in Sweden have 
to be reclassified to trunk or that some ways in Norway /Finland should 
be classified primary, I don't know that.

> However, even though the speed limit on a Swedish "riksväg" 
> (similar to a German "Bundesstrasse") is mostly 90 km/h (sometimes 
> 70 km/h), you are allowed to drive tractors and bicycles there.
> 
There is ofcourse also the chance that Sweden just does not have a road 
type that fits the trunk type between motorway and primary, however from 
what I read in other mails it appears that cyclists are allowed on most 
trunk roads in GB.

Sometimes tagging isn't just doesn't seem rational but requires 
compromises...