James, I think discussion can only be useful if and when we have a common understanding of what 'trunk', 'primary', 'secondary' etc. mean to us. I don't think we're anywhere close to that, looking at the various and partly mutually contradictory wiki pages on the topic:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_Road_Classification http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_Roadway_Classification_Guidelines http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_roads_tagging http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway:International_equivalence Some user observations / discussion has happened on the respective Talk pages, and I found some observations here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:NE2/classification_FAQ As long as we are not aligned on what constitutes the various OSM highway classes, we don't really have a good argument to make other than 'it looks too primary-heavy' and it will always be a back-and-forth based on gut feelings. You can't really have a discussion that way and expect it to reach a satisfying conclusion. I'm not saying it shouldn't be addressed. I am saying that if we are, we should carefully consider what has been said on the topic before so we don't repeat ourselves, and be prepared for a lengthy discussion. It would help if someone could take the time to collect and summarize what is currently on the wiki. Unfortunately I can't volunteer to do this right now. I will do my best to contribute to the discussion but my exposure to the U.S. main road system is limited. On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 9:42 PM, James Mast <rickmastfa...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Is it just me, or are there way too many primary state highways when some of > them should really be secondary instead? The US Highways should normally be > the "primary"/"trunk" highways and only a few select State Highways should > be primary or trunk. To be honest, it seems that 98% of all the State > highways segments in SC are marked as primary right now. > > There is no way almost all of the State Highways in SC can be "primary". > Just look at almost any other state. None are overloaded with primaries. > One of the major routes that sticks out to me is SC-64 near the Savannah > River Site where it's marked as "trunk" going to the security gate [1]. > Now, if the Savannah River Site didn't exist and the highway was still open > to the public past that point, I wouldn't agrue the point of it being trunk > or primary. But since that segment of state highway goes "nowhere" anymore > after leaving US-278 going West, this would be a classic case of it having > to be "secondary", or maybe even being "tertiary". > > So, does anybody else agree with me on this subject of "primary overload" in > South Carolina? If so, how do we go about fixing this with a reasonable > approach? Looking at some of the history of some of the ways, it seems that > only one user was doing the "upgrade" from secondary to primary/trunk over > the past 4+ months. He also did some of this in Georgia, but not to the > extent as in South Carolina. Unfortunately, this user did it over 200+ > changesets, so, if reverting was the option, it would take forever I would > think. > > -James > > [1] - http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/33.2388/-81.4205&layers=N > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list > Talk-us@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > -- Martijn van Exel President, US Chapter OpenStreetMap http://openstreetmap.us/ http://osm.org/ _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
