Minnesota/Minnesota highway classification/Proposal to conform to US Highway guidance for Expressways

Following is the text of the Proposal as written into the main page on 27 September 2022. The section numbers refer to the main page table of contents. On 30 October 2022 the proposal text in the main wiki was deemed accepted and the wiki modified to reflect that. This is an archival copy that should not be modified.

4.1 Expressway Proposal

4.1.1 Background

Since the introduction of the expressway=* key and the analysis of the tag's usage in Minnesota (in December 2012), guidance was provided in this wiki page for when the tag might be used for "motorway islands". No clear guidance was given, in general, about when the tag should be used for other segments of highways that were not then considered motorway islands. This proposal attempts to provide clear guidance on the use of the expressway key in Minnesota.

In August of 2022 a discussion of this topic was started in Slack (#local-Minnesota channel). The discussion attracted just a couple of meaningful comments. One of the comments provided a proposed worldwide approach to using the tag. A discussion of that informal proposal took place in the Slack #highway-classification channel. That discussion seemed to indicate that the proposal was consensus. The Expressway page was updated with that proposal. No further discussion took place in the Minnesota channel or in the Wiki talk page.

The proposal articulated below for Minnesota is to adopt, as-is, the approach documented in the Key:expressway page. The remainder of this section identifies how that proposal would be be handled in this Minnesota wiki page.

4.1.2 The Proposal

This proposal regarding the use of the expressway key in Minnesota consists of changes to two sections of the Minnesota page. The sections below have been edited to describe the changes that would take place assuming the proposal is agreed. The new prose is clearly marked as proposed. For improved readability the proposal text can be found in the two sections.

Simply, the proposal is to conform to the consensus approach mentioned in the Background section above.

5.1.2 Expressways

The US Highway reclassification page has a section mostly devoted to expressways titled Exceptions and Borderline Cases. The guidance provided there seems to apply well in Minnesota. Note that as of December 2021 the expressway=yes tag has only been used on a single highway segment for a total in Minnesota of 19.4 kilometers.

Minnesota will follow the US Guidelines for expressways.

PROPOSAL: The following text is a proposed addition to this section (refer to Proposals section above for background.)

Minnesota will also follow the guidelines for using the expressway Key as documented in Key:expressway For Minnesota it is assumed that the guidance given in both cited sources is sufficiently consistent. Minnesota mappers should refer to one or the other or both for clarification. The chart in the Key:expressway page in the section "How to Decide" might prove useful to mappers.

Refer to the specific route by route proposals listed below.

5.2.2 Expressway detailed guidelines

A highway segment currently (MN 60 between the Iowa border and Worthington) that is tagged with expressway=yes does not meet the criteria for being an expressway. Specifically there are numerous at grade intersections and there are no grade separated interchanges. The tagging should be removed. This step should be done prior to adding any new expressway tags. This tagging has been removed on 3/7/2022.

The following chart details specific places where expressway=yes should be used in Minnesota.

PROPOSAL: The following text is a proposed addition to this section (refer to the Proposals section and the Expressways section above for background.)

Note that this chart will be reviewed in detail and modified as required during the implementation phase of the using the expressway tag. The original table S3 was developed prior to this proposal and was developed based only on the motorway island analysis. It is expected that some of the details in this chart will be revised, including possibly adding expressway=no to some segments of some highways. Updates to this chart are not expected to be made prior to this overall proposal being agreed. It is also expected that other changes will be made to this section during implementation where explanatory notes are required to describe specific situations. The reason for making changes to the chart and adding explanatory notes at all is to communicate more clearly to future mappers what specific changes (and rationale) were made to the map based on these guidelines.