What Jarek says makes sense to me. I suspect many of the map users don't
live where the use the map.
Having said that could we come up with something that could be applied
across Canada or is that too much to ask for?
Thanks John
On Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 22:39 Jarek Piórkowski wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 at 11:30, Andrew Deng via Talk-ca
> wrote:
> > Hello, I believe Yonge Street in Toronto and York Region (Regional Road
> 1) should be tagged as highway=primary rather than highway=secondary as it
> is tagged now.
> > Here are some reasons I believe why:
> > 1) Yonge Street is considered the "Main Street" of Toronto, Thornhill,
> Richmond Hill, and Aurora. It is also a major road in Newmarket.
> > 2) It is a major thoroughfare throughout the route. In Toronto, the
> Yonge subway follows it and in York Region, Viva bus lanes are being built.
> It also connects to Bradford in the north.> 3) It was a former Ontario
> King's Highway - Highway 11. Some other former King's Highways in the
> Toronto/York area are tagged as highway=primary, such as Highway 27,
> Highway 7, and Highway 48.
>
> Hi Andrew, hi mailing list,
>
> I've been thinking about this for a while. Thanks for bringing this up!
>
> I'd like to contribute to a wider discussion about tagging primary in
> Ontario, particularly in urban and suburban areas. I think we should
> use it more - here's why.
>
> I've been unhappy for a while with the tagging guidelines for Ontario
> roads. The primary/secondary/tertiary OSM scheme originated in the UK,
> where basically all "A-roads" are primary (or trunk) and all "B-roads"
> are secondary. This is a UK-wide scheme and a crucial point is that
> there are still A-roads in busy urban areas. For example what is by
> GTA standards a narrow street in inner city like
> https://osm.org/way/327282307 (one-way, 1 or at most 2 lanes) is
> primary because it's an A road. [1] Many other regions in Europe also
> use primary for urban thoroughfares with frequent cross streets.
>
> For a long time, the Canadian tagging guidelines were a very close
> copy of the UK scheme - check out Danny's wiki edit in May 2019 [2]
> that removed very UK-like references to "C roads" (a UK
> classification) and "a suburb" ("An example would be the main roads
> within the suburb to get to the local primary school", "A
> highway=residential road which is used for accessing or moving between
> private residential properties (homes). Otherwise called a
> 'suburb'."), and removed a statement that primary, secondary, and
> tertiary roads are "all maintained by the provincial governments, with
> provincial jurisdiction."
>
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway:International_equivalence
> still specifies that in Canada, a highway=primary is a "Provincial
> primary highway that does not meet freeway standards". That might work
> in BC, where there are provincial highways in downtown Vancouver, but
> it doesn't work in Ontario. BC Highway 99 through downtown Vancouver
> is tagged as trunk, and it is no wider than Yonge through York Region
> tagged as secondary.
>
> Historically, in Ontario, the maintenance and jurisdiction of a road
> has more to do with whether a lower-level government could be
> strong-armed into accepting ownership in the 1990s than with its
> actual role in the road network. Ontario government downloaded the
> roads it could onto the regions and cities, but of course the volume
> of traffic or significance of the road doesn't change just because we
> enter a somewhat-built-up area (or it increases). There's some good
> examples along Highway 7 entering east Kitchener and east Guelph.
> Highways 8 and 24 entering south Cambridge are more examples - it's
> just a cut at point of jurisdiction change, it's got nothing to do
> with the actual road or its use.
>
> As a result, we don't really show the main roads in Ontario cities. We
> mostly jump from a freeway straight to secondary, and most exceptions
> are recent changes.
>
> To an extent a grid system, which most Ontario cities use, does of
> course consist of a number of fairly equal arterials, but natural
> obstacles often get in the way, and so in Toronto/GTA some arterials
> are more equal than others. Is every grid street really the same rank?
> When everything is secondary, what really is secondary?
>
> To give some examples, in Toronto Lake Shore Blvd is clearly a busier
> road and can carry more inter-local traffic than Church or Yonge
> downtown, yet currently they're all secondary. Adelaide and Richmond
> are the designated through corridors - consider especially their
> direct connection to the DVP. Given the choice, you should be driving
> on Adelaide/Richmond, not on Queen - they are designed for this. Yet
> again, Queen, Adelaide, and Richmond are currently all secondary.
>
> Until last year, York Region's Highway 7 was being indicated the same
> secondary as Dundas Street next to Dundas Square (because after all,
> Hwy 7 was downloaded). They are
