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

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/4 Liz <edodd at billiau.net>:
> On Mon, 3 Aug 2009, Elena of Valhalla wrote:
>> >  So is it really a big change for Germany and Italy to
>> > define the highway tag as the administrative classification of the road?
>> As Martin already said, yes, it would be a big change, and it would
>> become quite meaningless (I speak about Italy, don't know about
>> Germany)
>>
>> At least in Italy, the law states that the importance of a road
>> defines its administrative status, and this in turn decided who is
>> going to maintain it: if it was like this it would be great for OSM.
>
> this makes a fascinating problem the organised germanic heirarchiacal system
> vs the romantic italianate system

no, there is no versus, it is exactly the same issue in Germany and
Italy, as Elena pointed out: we can't go by administrative classes,
for similar reasons. To give you an example, look at the comunal road
"K 9652". User:Tirkon posted this illustrated example of how this
comunal road changes along it's way from unclassified to trunk - and
keeps it's administrative classification (Kreisstraße - traditionally
a tertiary road) all the way (it's all the "same" road):

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php?title=DE:Tag:highway%3Dtrunk#Beispiele

> i believe that i map what i see on the ground

that's what we all do - for certain things. Others, you can't see and
you must collect the information by different means. E.g. you don't
see administrative borders - but we agree that we want to have them in
OSM. Do you see "importance" on the ground? I'm not sure, but you see
it in the context.

cheers,
Martin