-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [OSM-newbies] residential street vs. unclassified
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:09:11 +0000
From: Mike Harris <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
There is (still) a lot of confusion about the use of the tag
highway=unclassified - see the wiki for the long history.
Some mappers have used "unclassified" with what often be regarded as its
"natural" meaning of "not classified" or "not otherwise specified".
Other mappers - perhaps especially in the UK - have used the value of
"unclassified" in a way somewhat similar to that used conventionally by
the UK Ordnance Survey - i.e. to describe public motor roads that are of
lesser status than 'A' and 'B' roads and 'tertiary' (in the OSM sense)
roads (often 'county' or 'C' roads) and are also through routes or
'useful' cul-de-sac routes in rural areas; these may have scattered
residential (or other) buildings along them but are not primarily
'residential'.
In urban areas, similar roads are often tagged as 'residential' where
there are buildings (usually - but not necessarily and certainly not
exclusively - residential buildings) along much of the length. While we
OSMers certainly would not copy OS mapping in any way ( O:-) ) the
analogy with OS practice - purely for the purpose of understanding how
tags have often been used - would be for OS 'yellow' roads to be tagged
as 'unclassified' and OS 'white' roads to be tagged as 'residential' in
built-up areas (with a case-by-case approach for the small number of OS
'white' roads in rural areas).
The other option to consider is highway=service, which has a number of
uses. One of these is often for roads that serve for access to a
building (e.g. a driveway to residential / commercial / industrial
premises) or within a commercial or industrial land-use area.
Perhaps a simple summary is that the value "residential" is unlikely to
be much used in rural areas (except on housing developments) and does
not exclude urban roads with premises abutting that are not only
residential. The value "unclassified" may be unhelpful in urban areas
and other options such as "residential" or "service" may be more
informative: the value "unclassified" in rural areas should perhaps be
used with caution - at least in the UK - as it has often be used with a
rather specific meaning (as opposed to "not classified").
I am trying here to be careful not to make any firm recommendation or to
start a detailed thread in the 'newbies' list but merely to record what
- so far as I can currently understand - is actual usage within the OSM
mapping community. Inevitably a summary as short as this will be
imperfect (just like my understanding ;-) ) but it might provide some
background for further reading. As ever, there is no "right" or "wrong"
- although hopefully we will one day reach the nirvana of total
consistency ( =-O ).
Mike
On 19:59, John F. Eldredge wrote:
I live on a street that is currently marked as "residential" in the OSM
database. However, it would better be described as mixed-use, as it has single-family
houses, large apartment complexes, and commercial offices (both stand-alone buildings and
low-rise office parks) along it. There are also a couple of convenience stores. It gets
some through-traffic, but most of the traffic is people who live and/or work on my street
or its side-streets. The street is two lanes wide and winding, not designed for heavy
traffic. Should I leave it tagged as residential, or tag it as unclassified?
--
*Mike Harris*
--
*/Mike Harris/*
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