On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 1:51 AM, Anthony <o...@inbox.org> wrote: > > Isn't it better in most situations to have both (ways and areas) > rather than just one or the other? > > At an intersection, yes, there is one squarish section of road that I > am capable of traveling on in any spot in any direction. But the > actual paths of travel through that intersection form intersecting > lines, not areas.
This raises another interesting question, that is, whether highways=* should *necessarily* express logical "paths of travel", or whether they are just a convenient way to represent an *area* used as a path of travel, as a placeholder for future, more detailed mapping (e.g. as an area). I'm not convinced that, say, a road should be mapped as *both* a way and an area - I don't see any need for that. But I guess you could map an "intersection" as an area and the paths of travel that pass through it as ways - if you want... Mixing and matching - that is, using *whatever most appropriately captures reality* in that particular case - is part of the beauty of OSM. That said, in reality, features that are 2D *are* areas, and should *eventually* be mapped as such in OSM. But I don't think there's any rush. Using ways with width=* is a good, quick, interim solution. Where you have the time, sure, go ahead and map areas. I do think we will need some more discussion and documentation about mapping areas - remember the debate about that keeps coming up, about whether adjacent areas should share nodes? _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
