[OSM-talk] definition of the main highway-tag

[David Lynch]

On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 06:56, Martin Koppenhoefer<dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/8/2 Liz <edodd at billiau.net>:
>
>> So the question is:
>> is there anything about a road inside an industrial or commercial area which
>> would be important inside a renderer or a routing engine
>> and is different to a residential road?
>
> yes.

> A residential road should be avoided if possible

That's your opinion. If I'm in a car, I prefer residential areas to
industrial ones. If I'm on foot or cycling, I prefer residential to
any other class of road.

>  Furthermore industrial areas are
> built according to standards that allow easy use with trucks, while in
> residential areas you will more often have smaller streets and
> straighter curves, which will cause problems to big trucks.

In my part of the USA, the fire engine is the large vehicle of choice
when designing roads, and it's about as big as un-manouverable as it
gets. If your residential street isn't accessible to big trucks,
people's houses burn down.

The real issue here isn't trucks. It's that the prevailing standard of
OSM is that unclassified is a higher level than residential, and that
leaves no tag for places (including most everywhere I've been in the
Americas, as well as, apparently, Australia) where roads in industrial
areas not appreciably different from a residential street, but not
abutted by houses.

-- 
David J. Lynch
djlynch at gmail.com