Salut
Thomas Meller wrote:
i agree to your opinion to get rid of the combination of route preference and official classification. But I don't agree to the way you address this issue.
I don't really have a way right now, I didn't intend my previous mail to suggest that I had. All I have is a general dislike for the combination of roles in the 'highway' tag. I'm thinking about better ways, and I'm sure other people are too. Since we currently lack other means to describe the character of a street, we must allow liberal usage of the various meanings of the highway tag.
Normally, maps are especially helpful for foreign people, those who don't know the way to take. For them, it normally is the best idea to follow a 'simple' route, something with the least possible need for navigation skills.
Indeed, and in those cases the general rule is to follow signaled primary routes. For this to work, the map and real signalisation must agree. So I don't think it's a good idea to change tags from primary to secondary just to influence some routing software. It'd be entirely subjective and hard to understand for other taggers. Maybe my French was not up to the task of explaining this sentiment properly.
I think that in some cases which may or may not apply here, not tagging a street as classified, even though it is, can help understanding. Which is why I'm not generally opposed to the idea of using "wrong" highway tags.
OTOH the 'best' route will depend not only on street width, but on realistic speed estimates - which will depend on time of day, season, vehicle type and whatnot.
The task to solve is difficult. I think by re-tagging the streets you will add to chaos instead of ease of use in the long run.
I won't propose re-tagging streets unless I have what I consider a better alternative to the highway tag. Till then I will try to use 'highway' like everybody else does. I hate tagging 'highway=path' though, it's a semantic atrocity perpetuated by careless Americans that is now being continued by orthodox taggers :-)
Better to develop a system which fits this specific need better than what you plan to do and promote it penetrantly enough to all routing development tasks and efforts.
Yes, I can't see where I suggested anything else. Maybe you mixed up my respones with the quotes from the original mail?
I would start redesigning the maxspeed tag for example. Up to now it is too ambigous to be used directly.
Go right ahead. I'm not yet at the stage where I propose anything. All I did was jumping at my chance to complain about 'highway'. Now back to using it.
Cheers Stephan