[OSM-talk] tagging roads

[Roy Wallace]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Pieren<pieren3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure that the width of what we consider unclassified roads
> will double in the next century.

Nevertheless, anything referring to "what we consider" is more
variable across time and people than the length of a metre.

> I never mentionned narrow=* but narrow=yes, where did you see narrow=* ?

I just meant using narrow as a tag, sorry, didn't realise narrow=* had
a special meaning.

> Again, width is not less subjective because it is always estimated
> (deprecating est_width just hides this point),

Precision is not synonymous with objectivity. This is important. Width
is less subjective because the length of a metre is well-defined. If
someone says "I think a metre is this long", and holds out their
hands, they can be proven correct or incorrect. If someone says "I
think this street is more narrow that what I would consider usual",
they cannot be proven correct or incorrect. That is what it means when
someone says width in metres is less subjective than a concept of
narrowness and of "usual" width.

> it is missing in most
> of the highways

This does not mean it is not a good tag.

> it is changing continuously along the roads

So? So does the number of lanes, but that doesn't mean lanes is not a
good tag. A way can be split where necessary (obviously a trade-off is
necessary between precision of width value and number of splits, which
would be same in the case of the use of narrow=yes).

> a width of 6 meters does not say if an hgv can pass or not, it will
> never replace the access restriction tags.

So? No one is suggesting it should. narrow=yes has the same issue, but
it is even less clear.