Talk:Oregon/Highway Classification

Feedback from Oregonian3

Hi User:Archpdx. Despite my username I no longer live in Oregon, but did live there for many years up until a few years ago. I'd be willing to help out with the Oregon road classification guidelines. I'll get my thoughts together and paste them here if you want. Oregonian3 (talk) 16:38, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks User:Oregonian3 for your offer. It would be great to get another person's insight on this - I haven't really touched this draft since I created it. --Archpdx (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Archpdx, awesome! Here's the list of all the routes/corridors that I think should be trunk. I've listed anything that's not on your list in bold. There's a few that are on your list that aren't on mine, which I've listed at the the end and think should be primary instead unless noted otherwise. Whenever there's discrepancies, I'll list the reason.

My list:

• US 95: entire length. Major corridor between Boise and Reno. Almost no use to OR itself though, so whatever Nevada and Idaho decide is good.
• US 97: entire length. By far the most important and traveled N-S route in Oregon besides I-5.
• US 101: entire length. Major route along the coast of Oregon. I could probably be convinced to drop sections to primary if others think so though, since it is quite windy and slow-going in many parts.
• US 30: US 101 to I-405. The part between Astoria and Longview is an important route from Vancouver to Astoria, and the part between Longview and Portland connects several major exurbs of Portland (Scappoose, St. Helens) with the city itself. I could be convinced to drop the Portland–Longview section to primary if others think so.
• US 26: US 101 to OR 6. Veyr-highly-traveled route between the north coast and Portland.
• Hogan Drive/Burnside Road/US 26: I-84 to US 97: Major route from Portland over the Cascades, to eastern Oregon areas like Bend.
• OR 18/OR 99W/Tualatin-Sherwood Road: US 101 to I-5: Very-highly-traveled route between the central coast and Portland.
• OR 22/US 20/OR 201: OR 18 to I-84: West of Salem is an important and high-traffic route between the north coast and Salem. East of Salem is the best route over the Cascades from Salem, the southern Portland area, and the many Willamette Valley towns in the area. After Bend it's by far the most important and traveled E-W route across eastern Oregon that's not I-84.
• US 20/OR 34: US 101 to I-5: High-traffic route between the central coast and Salem, and the north coast and Eugene. Also serves as the access to Corvallis from I-5.
• OR 126: US 101 to OR 569: High-traffic route between the south coast and Eugene
• OR 126: US 97 to US 26: Route from the Willamette Valley to Redmond, and then from Bend/Redmond area to Prineville (a major connection); has the highest traffic counts of any road in eastern Oregon outside of US 97
• OR 58: entire length: Very major trucking route across the Cascades, and access to anywhere in southeastern Oregon from Portland and the Willamette Valley
• US 199: entire length: Major connection between anywhere on the northern California coast and the I-5 corridor
• OR 62/OR 140/OR 39: I-5 to CA: Most important Cascades crossing in southern Oregon and northern California, and most importantly the route between the Rogue Valley and the Klamath Falls area
• OR 331/11: I-84 to WA: Route to Walla Walla from Boise and anywhere else to the south or east

On your list but not mine:

• OR 6: US 101 to US 26: a somewhat-important connection from Portland to Tillamook, but overshadowed by US 26 and OR 18. Only accesses a small area of the coast.
• OR 35: US 26 to I-84: Clearly a less-important route than US 26 in the area, I don't think Hood River to Bend is an important enough connection to automatically be trunk.
• US 197: US 97 to WA: quite a narrow, low-traffic, and winding road in sections, and not really suited for long-distance travel. The closely-parallel US 97 is much better suited and more important.
• US 20: OR 34 to OR 22: Completely bypassed by OR 34 as a through route in the valley; only serves as more local access between some of the cities in the area. East of that, it's clearly inferior as a route across the Cascades to US 26, OR 22, OR 58, and even OR 126; incredibly windy and connects to smaller tows on the Willamette Valley side.
• OR 38: US 101 to I-5: Connects the coast to the valley, but the cities in the valley are much less important than those at the end of the other coastal-crossing trunk routes listed above
• OR 42: US 101 to I-5: Connects the coast to the valley, but the cities in the valley are much less important than those at the end of the other coastal-crossing trunk routes listed above
• US 395: CA to I-84: extremely remote route that connects almost nothing of note. From Pendleton to Reno it's quicker to take I-84 to US 95. No more important than the number of other low-traffic routes that criss-cross this region, other than the fact that it has a US highway designation. In the Columbia Plateau region it's a marginally-better route than the myriad of state routes that cross the region, but nowhere near enough for trunk. Farther south, I think between OR 31 and US 20 the route shouldn't even be primary, as most traffic from the south will turn off onto OR 31 to get to US 97, the Bend area, and eventually Portland.

Those are my thoughts on the trunk highways. I can elaborate more if you'd like, and I can give my thoughts on which route should be primary too. Oregonian3 (talk) 01:50, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I saw you made the changes I mention above to the list. Thanks for taking my input into account! I know I'm not perfect at this either, so if you disagree with any of them feel free to push back of course. I realized I also forgot to add OR 38 to the above list that's on your list but not mine, I'll take the liberty to remove it too from the main page and I've added my justification above (it's very similar to that of OR 42). Oregonian3 (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Archpdx, if there's no objections, I'll go ahead and make changes on the map to the routes that we both agreed should be trunk when I get the chance next week. For the routes where we disagreed, I'll wait for some more input from someone else for now. Oregonian3 (talk) 14:52, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your feedback. Yeah, I decided to remove the ones you didn't list as these were routes I wasn't really sure about. I don't think we should list primary routes for now as there are many more of these than trunk. I asked people on Slack a couple days ago on whether or not US 101/WA 401/WA 4/US 101 and US 97 should be upgraded, including the parts in CA and WA and so far people from all 3 states agree that these should be upgraded. I would probably start with these two routes first. --Archpdx (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Will do US 97 now (I saw you already did US 101 and OR 18). I also added US 730 east of I-82 to the list as proposed. I had meant to include it in my above list, but somehow forgot. It's the main route between Portland and Walla Walla. Oregonian3 (talk) 14:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I just got a response from the author of the Washington draft over on Slack and they don't think US 730 to Walla Walla should not be a trunk route since it's not considered a Highway of Statewide Significance by WSDOT and its functional class isn't a principal arterial. I agree with them as although it's the shortest connection between Portland and Walla Walla, most traffic uses OR 311/11 and WA 125 instead. I also noticed on Streetside that destination signs on I 84 point drivers to OR 311 to get to Walla Walla and not I 82/US 730. I understand if you don't want to use Slack as it's proprietary, so I've also linked a screenshot of the discussion. --Archpdx (talk) 08:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I've also gone and updated US 26 between the coast and Portland, and from Portland to US 97. Figure there's going to be no controversy over that one. Oregonian3 (talk) 17:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

OR 22/US 20 corridor also done. Can't see that one having any controversy either. Oregonian3 (talk) 22:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Archpdx, I saw you added OR 212/224 to the list. That's one that I honestly can't make up my mind on. I think if we consider it a rural route at its east end, then I'd consider it trunk. On the other hand, if we consider it an urban route still at its east end, then I'd say it's probably primary. So do we consider the Portland metro area to extend all the way to the 26/212 split? I'd say it's a very borderline case that could benefit from some more opinions. I wouldn't complain either way though. Oregonian3 (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Completion of trunk/start of primary

Every Oregon corridor that is listed as trunk on this page is now listed as trunk on the map. Once I also finish the trunk routes in Utah, I can start on the primary routes in Oregon unless anyone has objections. I'll try to post a list of primary routes to this page ASAP. Oregonian3 (talk) 15:02, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Archpdx, I've added a full list of proposed primary routes outside of the Willamette Valley to the page. Let me know what you think of it. Oregonian3 (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks User:Oregongian3! I generally agree with the routes you listed, but I've yet to review the list thoroughly. I'll provide some specific feedback as soon as I can. --Archpdx (talk) 08:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Willamette Valley

I'm trying to figure out the best classification scheme for routes in the rural areas of the Willamette and Tualatin Vallies. The biggest issue is that there are a number of non-state routes (e.g. Ehlen Road, River Road) that are just as important if not more important than many of the state routes in the area. So any classification system by necessity must have a greater scope than just the state routes, making it a much more arduous task to create a full list of which roads should be primary (or in the case of a few, possibly even trunk). Should we break it up by county? That might be the best way to make it a manageable problem to tackle. Oregonian3 (talk) 17:20, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to recommend two more trunk highways in the Willamette Valley: the OR 219/McKay/Yergen/Ehlen Road corridor from Newburg to I-5 exit 278, and OR 99/99W from Eugene to OR 18. The former is the best route to Newberg from anywhere to the south, and the latter the best route to McMinnville from anywhere to the south. I think both Newberg and McMinnville are big enough and distinct enough from Portland that they should have trunk routes serving as connections to them from places like Salem and Eugene.

Technically, taking OR 221/Hopewell Road/OR 153/OR 154/Stringtown Road/OR 233/Cruichshank Road is the quickest way from to McMinnville from the south...but that's a much more convoluted route and traffic count data shows that more people are using OR 99W despite it being a bit slower. Thus, I'd say that OR 99W is probably the trunk route instead. Oregonian3 (talk) 01:53, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

US 730

As the author of the WA highway classification proposal, I had previously expressed on Slack that I didn't agree with US 730 being trunk, since it doesn't have a functional class of principal arterial, nor does WA consider it a Highway of Statewide Significance, which to me, really disqualify it from being a trunk road.

The fact that neither of these government classifications consider US 730 to be very important means that OSM shouldn't consider it an important road either. So do we really want a road that WA doesn't consider that important to be tagged as trunk? I don't think so. If Britain uses an official government definition (trunk=primary A roads) to determine what trunk roads are, so should we. We don't have to follow it completely, but we need to have a really good case for making an exception. And we had some Washingtonians questioning on the WA Slack channel whether or not Walla Walla is really a regional center since it's overshadowed by nearby Tri-Cities. I don't think you can make a good case for making a road trunk that connects a major city to a large town that is 4 hours away and is near a much larger metro area. -Compdude (talk) 08:00, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting here. I frankly find US functional classes to be almost useless: it's incredibly inconsistent between areas and often is completely detached from reality. To me, it comes down to the fact that I-84 to I-82 to US 730 to US 12 is the fastest route between Portland and Walla Walla. It could still be possible that I-84 to OR 11 would be the preferred route if it's substantially more intuitive and higher-quality. However, I don't see that as a true statement: the I-84/OR 11 and I-82/US 730/US 12 are relatively similar roads in terms of quality. Both have substantial segments that are two-lane roads, and both also have expressway and Interstate segments. Neither route is necessarily more intuitive or requires local knowledge to travel. So I don't think there's any improvement in quality in the OR 11 routing over the US 730 routing, meaning that I'd say that US 730 should be a trunk route as the fastest way from Portland (and other Willamette Valley cities) to Walla Walla.

As to the other part of your argument, with a population of over 30000, I'd think that Walla Walla is certainly important enough to be served by a trunk route, and I think it's far enough away from the Tri-Cities to be a distinct entity. It's similar in distance from the Tri-Cities as Portland is from Salem, and I think everyone can agree that Portland and Salem are two distinct population centers that should be served by separate trunk routes. Same with Seattle and Everett; there's no debate that US 2 should be trunk over the Cascades despite only serving this smaller satellite city. Same with Spokane and Coeur d'Alene with US 195 and US 95. Oregonian3 (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2022 (UTC)