[OSM-talk] Highway=trunk : harmonization between countries ?

djakk djakk djakk.djakk at gmail.com
Sat Aug 19 15:30:09 UTC 2017


"strategic" may not be the right word (my english is rusty :) )

The thing is, I want to avoid those dotted highway=trunk like this :
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.5884/-1.4035 (trunk then primary
in the town then trunk again), I'd prefer trunk - still trunk in the town -
trunk, like in England :
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/51.1057/-2.1245

2017-08-19 14:00 GMT+02:00 Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com>:

>
> Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl> writes:
>
> > Interesting approach, which might work for Europe, but at the moment I
> > am not entirely convinced. What is strategic at a European level might
> > not be so strategic locally, and vice versa. The European numbers are
> > also not signposted everywhere, so there may be a challenge of
> > verifiability. I believe the European definition basically defines the
> > endpoints and a few waypoints, and it is left to national authorities to
> > join the dots as they wish. So it may or may not achieve your goal of
> > having a harmonised definition between countries.
>
> I agree with caution in trying to change anything.
>
> "Strategic" is an imprecise term.   In the US, different people have
> different opinions about which roads are important, depending on where
> they live and where they want to drive.
>
> The tagging scheme is very much the UK system, and has adapations in
> other countries.  In the US, motorway/interstate is easy, and we more or
> less have primary for US highways, secondary for state highways, and
> tertiary for the next level of importance (reaching adjacent population
> centers).
>
> In the US, "trunk" is fairly well defined.  It's a road that is
> substantially more than a regular highway in that it has some aspects of
> a motorway.  To be "motorway" (interstate class), the road needs to be
> divided, multiple lanes, no stoplights, no at-grade intersections, with
> controlled access.  To be trunk, the road has to be part way to that
> standard.  So that means that almost all trunks are divided with
> multiple lanes in each direction, but they typically have some
> intersections (every few miles to maybe every mile), and may have some
> but not a lot of non-ramp access.  They often have narrower lanes than
> Interstate specifications allow.
>
> Around me, the poster child for trunk is Route 2.  It's the second most
> important east-west road in Massachusetts,, and in many places has two
> lanes each way, is divided, and has occasional farmstands and roads on
> the edge, but fairly few.  Lights (and one rotary) are at least a mile
> apart, and sometimes 5ish miles apart.  But, way out west, it is no
> longer trunk - it's just ~Main street, undivided, one lane each way,
> lights, houses.  There it's highway=primary, because it's still a key
> route, as important as a US highway.  In some places it meets motorway
> specs and is tagged as such.
>
> Calling a regular highway trunk, when it should be secondary or primary
> would defeat the purpose of trunk, which is to identify roads that feel
> intermediate between regular US highway and Interstate.   We don't have
> any formal designation between US highway and Interstate.
>
> In addition, there's history of people wanting to retag highways to
> match their own view of these tags, and many others being unhappy about
> this.  This is hugely important in OSM, which is about a group of people
> cooperating to improve the map.
>
> > Are you actually sure there is a problem to be solved? Do you have
> > examples of inappropriate or inconsistent use of highway=trunk?
>
> That's a very good question.   Certainly I find cases where roads are
> over or under tagged, and as long as it's occasional, I just fix them to
> match the norms of the larger surrounding area.   This is very different
> from trying to make large-scale changes in what the tags mean.
>
> Perhaps the OPs could rephrase the discussion in terms of what seems
> wrong with actual tagging and how that impacts users of the database
> (not any particular render :-).
>
> All that said, a problem in OSM is the blurring of road classification
> and road characteristics.  But that partially reflects a larger societal
> blurring in terms of how people identify and use roads.   It partially
> reflects a choice made by renderers to emphasize classification.
> Imagine a map where colors depend on whether the road is divided, how
> many lanes it has, and intersection frequency, and aren't affected by
> government labels!
>
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