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: osm.wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack - 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 osm.wiki/Key: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: osm.wiki/Key: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

Hello,
I noticed this edit changed a stretch of Pearblossom Highway near Palmdale to 'highway=construction'. Is this a long-term construction project where the road will be closed for a long period of time? Short-term (less than a year) reconstruction projects, especially where the road will be at most intermittently inaccessible, should not be tagged 'highway=construction'.

The ramps east of Jefferson Blvd either come directly from or spit you out directly at an at-grade intersection; they are not motorway_links. Freeways do not have left-hand turn pockets.

See also here (osm.wiki/United_States/Public_lands) for the correct tagging of USFS lands. Please correct these boundaries as well as any others you may have changed.

Hello,
Why were these relations changed from 'type=boundary' to 'type=multipolygon' along with an undocumented tag 'boundary:type'? The usage of the 'boundary=protected_area' tag is well documented (osm.wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area) and used everywhere else in the US for national forest lands.

Hello,
I've noticed a number of changesets from you recently that upgrade single interchanges on trunk roads up to motorway. In general, motorway should only be used on continuous stretches of fully access controlled highway. Expressway-grade roads (trunk) are allowed to have full interchanges, but also have at-grade intersections as well. If you find you are switching between motorway and trunk at an arbitrary point on the road, it is probably not a motorway.
Bradley

Hello,
This changeset broke the USFS Humboldt-Toiyabe & LTBMU boundary relations by merging Old Kingsbury Grade into one way. Please be mindful of relations when working with ways that are used as part of the relation.
Also, this road is residential and not a track - its primary function is to provide access to the residential property at the midpoint of the grade, and not for forestry access/use.
Bradley

Why was Bunny Hill Drive north of the small residential area bumped up beyond track or service at best? Have you ever physically been on it before?

There is a difference between a freeway permitting bikes in the shoulder and a roadway having dedicated, marked bike lanes. Freeways do not have bike lanes, nor sidewalks for the same reason. This doesn't address the fact that this roadway provides direct access to properties, something that is explicitly prohibited in a US freeway design. This is a nearly textbook expressway.

Freeways *do not* have RIRO access to adjacent properties; neither do they have bike lanes. The complete lack of access to adjacent properties is, in fact, a defining feature of a freeway. This is not "obviously and undoubtedly" a freeway, especially in a country with a national standard for a freeway (interstate), which this roadway does not meet. Please stop tagging every roadway with two grade-separated interchanges in a row as 'motorway'.

Once again, this is not up to 'motorway' standards for the US. This road has multiple single-carriageway sections, bike lanes, and sidewalks, which preclude it from being a freeway.