You're right about the Donner Summit Canyon parcel being part of the state park. I didn't realize that TDLT conveyed the property to the state system.

However, this changeset still broke the Donner Summit Memorial Park relation since it is not rendering anymore and is tagged in a way that should render on osm-carto.

Hi,
It appears this changeset has broken the Donner Memorial State Park relation. Random 'natural'/'landuse=forest' areas in adjacent conservation properties have been added to the relation (on first glance, in the Donner Summit Canyon area, which is owned and managed by the Truckee Donner Land Trust and is not a part of the state park). The boundaries as they were before these changes were correct with respect to land ownership records maintained by Nevada and Placer county so I don't understand why these changes were made.
Bradley

Cool, sounds agreeable to me. The tag I gave was simply what I thought was the best fit given what info I could find about the location. If you have more detailed info then feel free to change it.

Hello,
The 'tourism=hostel' tag is defined as follows: "Hostels provide accommodation where guests can rent a bed in a shared room, sometimes a bunk bed in a dormitory, and share a bathroom, kitchen and lounge."

The maximum guest capacity here is 15 and lodging is described as "six ground floor rooms, each with a queen bed and private bathroom", with a shared living space and kitchen. This isn't an arrangement typical of what most people in the US would consider a "hotel" to be, and fits closely with the definition for 'tourism=hostel'.

Bradley

I am extremely confused about all these very recent reclassifications. What, exactly, do you now consider a trunk road?

You clearly aren't using "major highways" because this part of CA 99 would certainly qualify. Divided, limited access highways don't count either since you downgraded CA 108 expressway sections to 'primary'. Super-twos don't seem to count either. Four-lane limited access roads don't count, since you're downgrading those portions of US 50 and US 101. Yet, recently, you bumped up US 50 on east shore of Tahoe (4 lane undivided road with no access control) to 'trunk', as well as from Carson City through to Dayton (4 lane undivided road with partial access control) to 'trunk' as well.

Frankly after multiple attempts by myself and others to reach out to you about these changes, it feels like you're changing classifications simply to have changed them.

Please use the changeset comments to explain your reasoning for these changes! Especially when it is basically impossible to discern why you are making these changes based on your edit history.

Along the portion you tagged 'motorway' in this changeset, from west to east, there are:

- high quality sidewalks on both sides of the highway until Witherby St. & Couts St. turnoffs on south and north side of the highway respectively (aside from Barnett underpass).

- bus stops at Witherby and Veterans Village

- no 'pedestrians prohibited' signs afterwards (nor anywhere else on this highway and associated on/off ramps as far as I could find)

- bike lanes on the highway connecting from Barnett through to Washington via on/off ramps (NB ending after RIRO with Couts St)

- sidewalks and bike lanes returning as the highway continues past I-5 on/off ramps after Washington overpass

- roadside parking and direct access to parking lots NB just after Sassafras

I would argue the only section of this road that could be called a 'motorway' is the short piece just after the western ramps connecting with Washington to the I-5 on/off ramps, but it would be silly to tag something that short as 'motorway', especially when the on ramp to I-5 is signed with a 'Freeway Entrance' sign, indicating that the DOT apparently does not consider this portion of the Pacific Hwy to be a freeway.

San Diego appears to have many freeway-like roads (Sea World interchanges, Friars Rd), including a handful of decommissioned "freeways" like this one (Kearny Villa Rd./Old Us 395). However, it also has a robust, continuous network of high standard interstate and state freeways that do not have sidewalks, bike lanes, bus stops, and on-street parking interspersed - which makes it fair to say that any roadway that has these things cannot be in the same 'motorway' category. These "in-between" roads are generally tagged as 'trunk' in the US.

Bradley

Hello,
I'm likely going to revert this change again for a couple of reasons:

1. While it may be officially the case, signage indicating this section is US 395 Business Route is nearly non-existent and thus is not useful for navigation. This is why I had this section tagged with 'unsigned_ref', rather than 'ref'. (unsigned_ref=*)

2. This section is not up to 'primary' standards as indicated by wiki guidance: "A few major urban arterials also may merit highway=primary if and only if they provide a clearly better routing (higher speeds and fewer delays arising from traffic signals, stop signs, or other obstructions) than available urban arterials bearing highway=secondary" (osm.wiki/United_States_roads_tagging#Primary_tag_2).

3. While it is a "through" road, it is not as important as other primary roads in the region. Virginia doesn't move the same level of traffic as other nearby primary roads; especially through the urban core it is narrow and slow moving. It doesn't augment the freeway network like McCarran, Pyramid, and Veterans do. It isn't used as a major route through town; instead it mainly services inter-urban traffic, similar to other 'secondary' roads in Reno/Sparks.

I understand that road classes are very fuzzy in the US and are still a subject of debate, and that old 'main' through roads are tagged 'primary' in many other parts in the US, but for this region this tagging is inconsistent relative to other 'primary' roads in the region. I appreciate your desire to contribute here, but I am asking that you respect the fact that I currently live locally in the region, that I have lived in the greater region here for as long as you have been alive, and I have been driving here for over a decade. I have received complaints from another active mapper in the area about your changes to the road classifications in the greater Nevada region, and while you're certainly welcome to make changes wherever you like, you will receive pushback from local mappers who have put a lot of thought into local road classifications, especially since they are time-consuming changes to correct.

I am willing to leave the changes you recently made on US 50 (primary->trunk) since 'trunk' classification in particular is unsettled and recently came up again on talk-us without consensus. Nevada's multi-lane highways with occasional divided carriageways and sporadic access control are a pretty grey zone. However, I will most likely revert any changes bumping any more roads in the Reno/Sparks area up to 'primary' or 'trunk', given that there are relatively unambiguous examples of both in the region (in urban context).

Bradley

Hello,
This stretch of Pacific Highway does not meet standards for 'motorway' use. This is an expressway, with sidewalks, bike lanes, direct access to a limited number of properties, and with "Freeway Entrance" signage not beginning until the ramps connection with I-5. Just a heads up that I will be reverting this back to 'trunk' accordingly.

Bradley

Hi TaubBear,
Why are you dropping so many of these roads to service? Many, if not most, of these roads are county roads that are accessible to the public. While they are rough and often require a high-clearance vehicle (and occasionally a 4x4), the "quality" of a road doesn't drop it to 'service' on its own.

From the wiki:

Service road: "Generally for access to a building, service station, beach, campsite, industrial estate, business park, etc."

Unclassified road: "...minor public roads typically at the lowest level of the interconnecting grid network...unclassified roads may be unpaved in larger, poorer or more remote/rural areas"

I am likely going to change these back soon, but wanted to reach out first.

Also, if a highway doesn't exist, it should simply be deleted rather than use the name field to describe the road as non-existent (which is not the name of the highway)

Bradley

Hello,
I going to revert this changeset for a number of problems:

- Turn lanes should only be mapped as separate ways if they are physically separated from the main roadway (ie, a right turn that bypasses an intersection around a physical island). Here, this only applies to the turn from SB McCarran to WB 7th.

- These ways should be tagged as 'link' roads - if the main way is a 'secondary', then the turn lane should be tagged 'secondary_link'

- The 'name' tag is used for signposted (verifiable) names and not for descriptions of what the object is ("West 7th street right turn onto McCarran south", etc) - see osm.wiki/Good_practice

Please be specific with your changeset comments (obviously you are making edits, it is clear where they are being made by looking at the boundary of the changeset) - your changes tend to make substantial adjustments to roadway classifications that other mappers would appreciate hearing your justifications for.

Hello,
Why are so many of these roads being upgraded? Most of Boulder City Parkway & Boulder Highway (NV 582) do not meet expressway road standards (trunk). Nevada Way is a plain urban artery (secondary) and not a major route (primary). Lakeshore/Northshore/Leak Mead Blvd are not major highways nor are they the main route between any two significant population centers (generally the requirement for primary). It seems to me that these roads are being upgraded for better visibility on the main slippy map rather than to follow US tagging guidelines.

Bradley

Hello,
Singular interchanges on a road which is otherwise 'trunk' are not enough to promote a highway to 'motorway'. 'Trunk' roads *may* have grade-separated interchanges, but a 'motorway' *must*. The fact that the single interchange here is book-ended by a two-lane road on one end and an at-grade at the other precludes it from being a 'motorway'.

Hello,
Trunk roads may also be all of those things. In order for it to be a motorway, the road needs to be accessed by on/off ramp only with grade separated interchanges, which is not the case here. There should be a bare minimum of two sequential interchanges before considering promotion to 'motorway' as well, since trunk roads *may* have grade-separated interchanges, but motorways *must* use grade-separated interchanges. IE, a single interchange on its own is still not enough to be tagged 'motorway'. Generally, if a divided highway is switching back and forth between grade-separated and at-grade intersections, it's most likely trunk along its entire length. There was a discussion a couple weeks back on the talk-us mailing list, indicating fairly strong consensus for tagging this way, that I would encourage you to read for more information.

Hello,
This edit changed a handful of roads that provide access to specific properties (Hinton & Iceland roads, at first glace) from 'service' to 'track'. An unpaved road is not automatically tagged as a 'track' - only those which are primarily used for forestry and agricultural purposes. Please see this article: highway=track - specifically the section "highway=track versus other classes of highway=*"
Bradley

Hello,
Merging Old Kingsbury Grade into a single way broke the relation for the LTBMU and Toiyabe Ntl Forest boundaries, since they use segments of the road centerline as part of the boundary. Please be mindful of these relations when working with the ways they are dependent on.

Hello,
OSM does not use local government road designation to determine classification. Per both highway=* and osm.wiki/United_States_roads_tagging, these roads are now severely over-classified. 'Primary' should generally be used for major highways and principal urban arteries, not for dead-end roads connecting a handful of houses in a suburban neighborhood. Likewise, 'secondary' should be used for linking highways not part of major route, or for arterial roads in urban areas. Please review these classification standards and make appropriate adjustments - most of the minor roads here are dead-end collectors, and should therefore be no higher than 'tertiary', let alone 'secondary' or 'primary' - or these changesets will be reversed.

Hi Fluffy,
I'm not really sure why the wiki states that the "importance" definition is more commonly used in the west - by visual inspection of the map, it appears to be most common in the south (noting, importantly, that most of the road miles tagged trunk are built to expressway standards).

There has been years of debate over the "proper" usage of the 'trunk' tag in the US with no true consensus established. I am sympathetic to the argument that the 'trunk' tag would be better used in the US to tag major inter-city routes not serviced by a freeway. I have argued it to talk-us on multiple occasions. It makes sense to have a distinct tag for freeways given that they are clearly defined with a checklist of requirements (divided, full access control, full grade separation, access by ramps only). However, expressways tend to be fuzzier in the US and come in many shapes and sizes since they are not standardized nationally. I think the "best" way to negotiate this would be to orthogonalize route importance (using 'highway') and expressway construction standard (full, super-two, partial, etc) using an 'expressway' tag as proposed here: expressway=*.

A couple years ago, I bumped a number of major routes in the SW area of the US up to 'trunk' on this definition (US 395, 95; CA 70/99, 299). I have since bumped them back down due to the lack of consensus on this tagging scheme, deferring instead to the expressway definition given that the definition is more common (both in the US and the world over) and has a longer history of use in the US. I typically use 'trunk' to tag divided, partially grade separated highways as well as fully access controlled two-lane roads (see CA 108 and others). I think this definition is still reasonably robust and respects the lack of consensus as well as the history of the usage of the tag.

There is also reasonable evidence that the "importance" definition came into existence in the US when a user NE2 unilaterally bumped all US routes up to 'trunk' and added the "importance" clauses in the wiki (this can be verified by looking through wiki page history for highway tagging). OSM uses a consensus-based decision making process, so I don't think it's necessarily fair to carry artifacts of this unilateral edit into the present without the US community in general being on board, which I don't believe is the case as of now.

You are certainly welcome to argue your case for the 'importance' definition to talk-us, but it has been done many times without much success in the way of establishing consensus. It's frustrating, to be sure.

Why were urbanized parts of Mammoth Lakes covered with large 'natural=wood' polygons as well?

Hello,
Is this closure to motor vehicles a permanent change? Any information a quick google search turns up for me suggests that it is temporary, at least until the end of the lockdown order. Generally, what should be in OSM is the 'normal' state of things and not temporary closures (osm.wiki/Good_practice, see "Don't map temporary events and temporary features").

Bradley