Talk:Tag:highway=secondary

I disagree with the changes by User:Floridaeditor regarding tagging in the US: almost everything that he suggests to tag as secondary I tag as tertiary (and almost all he would tag as tertiary I tag as unclassified). I use secondary for important state highways except for the very few "extremely important" state highways that warrant tagging as primary. I edit in Montana, mostly the rural areas, and follow the tagging described on the Montana/Highways page. --Lyx (talk) 16:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

This definitely varies by State. In California, there are major State motorways which which are built to Interstate freeway standards in rural areas (e.g. CA-99 in the Central Valley is busier and wider than than I-5), and there are State highways which serve as highway=trunk (e.g. CA-86 is 4 lanes and divided, it connects 2 cities through the desert). But because of this complexity, probably it's best if this is mentioned on the US-specific pages, rather than on this page which is for the whole globe. The standards for tagging highway=secondary vary between different regions of Indonesia and different parts of Russia and Brazil too: we don't want the page to have a huge section for each country. --Jeisenbe (talk) 16:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Wow, that's interesting. You have very few secondary roads, I assume. If it really varies that much, I assume that not only is secondary road the most disputed tag amongst highways, but everybody uses it differently. Adding documentation from previous edits to Florida I guess... --Floridaeditor (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

In northern California I use highway=tertiary like you recommend highway=secondary in the Florida article. It's not really clear from it how they are different. Especially since you say both can be used on less busy county roads with a speed limit over 35 MPH. I'm not sure what having a reference number or not matters for tertiary either and the whole thing about secondary roads passing through more then three towns seems a little off. It's probably best to stick as closely to the existing definition instead of making up arbitrary standards like speed limits and numbers of towns the road has to go through to qualify. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:23, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe you misread; secondary is for less busy state roads. --Floridaeditor (talk) 20:27, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I guess the tagging for most highway classes is equally disputed. It might be an idea to create a category "Regional Highway Tagging Guides" that can be mentioned on the individual Tag:highway=* pages. That category could contain pages like Highway Tag Africa or United States roads tagging. --Lyx (talk) 22:38, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Arterials in urban areas

I know that the words collector and arterial are used inconsistently in traffic engineering literature when comparing different countries, sometimes they are used both at the urban level and at the regional level but referring to different things when switching to the other level. Howeer, Tag:highway=tertiary says that Tertiary roads also serve to move traffic away from narrower or quieter streets (represented by highway=residential or highway=unclassified) and onto wider arterial routes (highway=secondary or greater) more suited for heavier traffic., so, for clarity, I think this article should mention that secondary ways should be used for wider arterial roads in urban areas. --Fernando Trebien (talk) 15:57, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I added "In cities it is used for major arterial roads." Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 07:23, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Minor roads in CBD

Discussion concerning tagging of minor roads in CBD: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2022-March/064087.html --Fizzie41 (talk) 03:00, 11 February 2023 (UTC)