[OSM-talk] What's the policy on unsurveyed roads from imagery?

[John Smith]

2009/12/27 Anthony <osm at inbox.org>:
> That said, I personally find the highway tagging guidelines difficult to
> apply anyway.  In states without formal legal road classifications we might
> as well mark everything except motorways and service roads as "road" for all
> I can tell.  Anything else is just tagging for the renderer.

This is another endless OSM debate, in general I look at how used a
road is, how urban it is, if it's a main through fare or is the "main"
street in towns and has since had a bunch of roundabouts and humps put
in to slow traffic and then take an educated guess as to what to tag a
road.

It isn't the most objective way to do things, but then it's going to
be subjective somewhere, the only difference is if you make the
decision or someone in council does.

Another way to look at it is if you have similar roads which are the
quickest way to go usually.

Also it's usually likely that a primary or trunk road won't just dead
end, but instead connect or continue as a secondary, and same with
secondaries they will usually connect or continue as a tertiary and
they will usually connect/continue as a residential or unclassified.