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

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/3 Christiaan Welvaart <cjw at daneel.dyndns.org>:
> I don't see what you're saying here. Do you have a complete text to
> replace the intro text on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway ?

NO, of course not. All I wanted to do is change the first phrase:
"The highway tag is the primary tag used for highways. It is often the
only tag. It is a very general and sometimes vague description of the
physical structure of the highway. "

into this one:
"The highway tag is the primary tag used for highways. It is often the
only tag and describes the importance of the highway in the road
system."

This would also imply some further modifications in the general
definition of highway, where there was put emphasis in the physical
state, while all particular tags (motorway, primary, secondary, etc.)
could remain the same for one simple reason: they already define
themselves about importance and not physical state (have a look, they
speak about "Important roads that aren't motorways", "generally
linking larger towns", "leading to/from a primary road from/to a
primary road ", "generally linking smaller towns and villages",
"typically form the lowest form of the interconnecting grid network",
etc. more than about physical state (just tertiary and motorway, where
motorway is actually defined by legislation (motorway-sign) and not by
beeing something like "4 lanes and more").

cheers,
Martin