Talk:Highways

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Talk:Highways - Other languages

US tagging

See proposed US highway tagging at Talk:Highway_tag_usage --SiliconFiend 19:23, 8 October 2007 (BST)

Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup_Request

This article seems to duplicate and contradict other information on the wiki. I proposed to reduce this page to a set of links to the main articles that cover the issues. Any objections? PeterIto 12:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I think it need a good clean, although i'm not sure how to do it as many discussions and debates relating to roads appear to be ongoing. Martin Renvoize 09:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with an overview page Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:34, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Ref for junction number?

It seems to be a bad idea to use ref on a link for the junction number. We have highway=motorway_junction on the beginning node for this, and it causes a conflict sometimes when the link also carries a numbered route. --NE2 01:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody's responded, I'm removing this. --NE2 08:41, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:35, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Detailed geometries for roads?

I am wondering how to best represent the real dimensions of roads, pavements etc at building-level (MasterMap-like) detail.

If i turn segments of roads into areas, is that likely to break various routing or rendering applications which expect there to be a way?

Any advice much apprec. Metazool 23:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't turn roads into areas, unless they're town squares or the like (in which case you use area=*). You can use landuse=highway or something similar. (Don't use the ambiguous term pavement; in the U.S. pavement means tarmac.) Do you really have enough precision to map both edges of the pavement/sidewalk/walkway? It may be better to use width=*. --NE2 00:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
See area:highway=* Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Move to Highway

Any thoughts about moving Highways to Highway? It appears Highways is the main page with Highway redirecting to Key:highway which is type of sub-main page, but instead a main page for the key. While searching for 'Highways' from a practical point of view makes sense. I believe it could easily be skipped while searching for a the main page, and by mistake thinking 'Highway' as the main page. Unless someone doesn't see the link to 'Highways' on the 'Highway' page they may never know. I feel that if its moved to 'Highway' with 'Highways' redirecting to 'Highway' that people will have an easier time reaching the introduction page. This also makes sense since the key value is 'highway' which one would think that most people would be searching for the term 'highway' and not 'highways' --Frankthetankk (talk) 20:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Direction: start at km 0

Mention to make sure when drawing highways that the direction starts from kilometer 0 (or lowest km.) and not the other way around. Jidanni (talk) 03:13, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Can you clarify what you mean? Can you link an edit fixing this kind of mistake? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Unmaintained roads

It was a surprise for me that searching for "unmaintained" did not pop up any results. It seems that we do not have a proper tagging for these cases:

  • a proper two lane asphalt road which is not maintained through winter (or during adverse weather),
  • a proper two lane asphalt road which is not maintained at all (so there may be parts where the road does not even exist).

While the second one may be rare (I have a few but since I live in the middle of the civilisation such roads are usually forcibly closed at both ends, usually by cement blocks or overgrown boulders) the first one is pretty common, and using them in the winter without a proper vehicle may be very dangerous.

Some actual newsbits about two (admittedly not very smart) young guys following google maps' advice in Siberia and one of them frozen to death reminded me that this information may be pretty relevant for map users and navigation.

I am not sure whether a separate winter_maintenance=no tag would be justified, or a maintenance=(no_winter|no) would be more generic, but something shall be used anyway. Before I go and propose something I'd be very happy to have your input. Thanks!

I also see that iD thinks "track" is "an unmaintained road" but this does not correlate with any wiki pages whatsoever, seems like some kind of fantasy to me. Wiki specifically tell that "track" is based on usage and not physical attributes. Obviously without proper tagging the only way to warn people of unmaintained roads is to tag them highway=track + surface=asphalt, but this is very probably incorrect. --grin ✎ 09:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Transit malls and proper tagging

A transit mall is a street, or set of streets, in a city or town along which automobile traffic is prohibited or greatly restricted and only public transit vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians are permitted.

14th St Bway td (2019-10-28) 20 - 14th Street Busway.jpg

Because these roads are often referred as "busways," inexperienced mappers will usually consult Key:busway, which states that "Bus-only roads (asphalt/tarmac)" should be tagged with highway=service + service=busway + access=no + bus=yes.

For a municipality, the creation of transit malls may mostly involve the creation of additional access restrictions for motor vehicles. It is not necessary for the municipality to change anything else about the street.


As such, when a regular residential road gets converted into a transit mall, the appropriate changes for a mapper to make would involve modifying the existing access tags. It would not involve modifying the existing highway tag.

This fact needs to be better documented, as mappers often make such kinds of mistakes.

Fire lanes

Mention how to tag w:fire lanes. Jidanni (talk) 15:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Please ask on the relevant page, or the help and forum sites if you don't know better. Key:parking:condition#Reasons_for_the_condition_(optional) is the 1st result in https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?search="fire+lane" already. --- Kovposch (talk) 02:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
So fire lanes are always parking related. OK. Jidanni (talk) 10:50, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

geometry of a road with chicanes

How to correctly draw such a road with chicanes? Should it be a straight line, as if these chicanes were not there, or zigzag as the vehicle drives? maro21 15:15, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

There is no documentation or consensus on the question. See the graphic below for a schematic illustration of the variants.
My strong favorite is variant B (following the driving line and using a zigzag in case of chicanes). This makes routing and data/traffic analysis more precise. For the information about the shape of the carriageway itself we have the possibility to use highway areas (area:highway=*).
Highway representation.png Supaplex030 (talk) 07:51, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Regardless of the geometric style, always add traffic_calming=chicane. Chicanes are rare where I map. I generally map ways following the centerline of traffic lanes, assuming the centerline is not affected by:
  • Turn lanes, which are more common in busy main roads (urban arterials, expressways, motorways, usually classified as highway=secondary and above); and
  • Parking lanes, which are more common in quiet streets (typically highway=tertiary and below). This is because, where I live, parking lanes become traffic lanes when clear and their regulations can change frequently, especially in and near urban centres, where many legally become traffic lanes during peak hours.
So I would generally curve the line of a chicane if it occurs in a main road, and map a straight line if in a local street. ::--Fernando Trebien (talk) 12:51, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
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