I’m in a changeset discussion with @foreigner037 about how to map two sections of Автомагистрала Хемус: the Sofia end of it (Changeset: 159601573 | OpenStreetMap) and the part at Правешки ханове tunnel and the bridge next to it (OpenStreetMap). These sections have been tagged as highway=motorway and highway=trunk by various mappers, depending on what they find the most important aspects of it.
I asked the community in general about this issue here Where does a motorway begin and end? but didn’t get a clear answer. I would like to hear the opinion of the Bulgarian OSM community (and others) on this issue for the two sections mentioned so we won’t have further edit wars on it in the future.
I think we should take Map what’s on the ground into account and map the legal status as shown by the road signage.
For the Sofia end of Hemus, this clearly shows that the motorway starts and ends after the junction with road 1&6 (https://maps.app.goo.gl/GhDR21UugYuTWQPN8 and https://maps.app.goo.gl/WtBmbXQDiuockgN48) so the part west of it is not highway=motorway. Whether it is trunk, primary or whatever, and what the street name is, is open for discussion for me, but I think it is a fact that if you get caught driving 140 km/h on that road, you will be fined.
For the tunnel&bridge section, the situation is less clear because some signage is missing. For the Varna direction, there is this an end-of-motorway sign just before the tunnel (not visible on Streetview, but I passed it yesterday) and a start-of-motorway sign after the end of the bridge (https://maps.app.goo.gl/D4fLkNK98XNKsuXGA ) so the road in between is not a motorway (it also has speed limits and lacks shoulders). For the Sofia direction, there is only an end-of-motorway 400 m sign (here https://maps.app.goo.gl/hZoEKNp6q5cAdPNp8) and no start-of-motorway sign, but also has speed limits and lacks shoulders.
That the kilometers are counted from below the ring road bridge in Sofia and that signage has a green background colour are less important on-the-ground evidence, I think (it won’t save you from having to pay your speeding fine). That the motorway exists virtually in the API database as uninterrupted from the ring road to Varna is not part of on-the-ground evidence.
Keep in mind that other tags also exist, like maxspeed = X, shoulder = no, bicycle = yes and etc, which aid to specify the concrete on the ground situation as just putting highway = X is clearly not enough.
The section near Praveshki hanove has maxspeed = 80/90, so you won’t get a speeding fine as you put it. In this case I think we are dealing with old signs that have never been removed, as this is the only place with such a configuration in Bulgaria.
The start near Sofia also has maxspeed = X, bicycle = yes and other tags.
In both cases it is clear that the authorities haven’t done their job properly and what should legally be there vs what is on the ground differs. There is also conflicting information on the ground.
I had a reply for that segment which I thought I posted but it is in my drafts still… Anyway, here it is:
The Varna-bound pipe of “Praveshki hanove” tunnel was opened in July 2024 after reconstruction works. The signs you’ve seen are likely temporary and applied during the construction works. In a few months construction works will start in the Sofia bound pipe. After that, in spring/early summer 2025 (if everything goes as planned), construction works should be done and both pipes should be commissioned officially. After that the signs should be removed.
For this one I also had a draft, which I remember sending. As you may have guessed, it was still in my drafts folder… It’s now sent to API, so in some time we should have an official answer (but don’t expect anything before Easter).
In regards to OSM’s data, I’ve marked the exact positions of the motorway start/end signs so we know that’s correct. From there on it is a muddy lake.
Not exactly true. The signs are there since atleast 2012, probably since the opening of this section in 1999. I still think they are wrongly placed though, as this is the only place where such signs are used before a tunnel and I think a speed limit would have sufficed.
The fact is that the signs are there: I don’t think we should speculate why they are there, that they may be there by mistake, or are temporary, but simply map the on-the-ground situation. Only where the start-of-motorway sign in the Sofia direction is missing, we need to guess that it should have been placed at the end of the tunnel, and map the road as a motorway from where the shoulder begins and the speed limit ends.
It might be helpful to confirm the on-the-ground situation, but if there is a disagreement, it should be the on-the-ground situation that should be mapped, I think.
For the start of the motorway I can understand the logic, even though I personally disagree with it, but for the section near Praveshki Hanove the change is in my opinion completely useless and will not bring anything apart from the satisfaction of some mappers in their questionable strive of 1:1 mapping.
Whether adding a certain detail to the map is useful or not is a very personal thing. I’m not into micromapping myself unless I have nothing better to do, but I think if someone else finds it useful to add every single tree in a park to the map, I will not spend time deleting them again unless they are mapped wrongly (in the wrong place, it’s not a tree but a bush, no tree there at all, etc.). I think it is worth striving for mapping reality in detail, though how much detail is sufficient is something personal. From your remark in one of the changeset discussions (“will not lead to a better mapping situation apart from the satisfaction of being factually correct at the cost of simplicity.”) I understand that you prefer to simplify the map at the cost of being factually correct? I strongly disagree with that! Besides I don’t see how tagging an already existing section of a road with highway=motorway instead of highway=trunk adds to simplicity.
The motorway end and start signs are intended to be there: they are not temporary or a mistake
The actual situation is different from the mapped one (Д5 signs at km 54+570 are not there, Д6 sign is not at km 55+670 but before the beginning of the tunnel at approx. km 54+500), so maybe вярно с оригинала but not вярно с действителността
Funny you should say that, since someone mapped every single tree in Lyuilin in Sofia, which makes the editor struggle when in the neighborhood, even on powerful PCs.
I still think the authorities are just going on on what was there already and not putting any thought on what the situation should or should not be, but it seems that I am the minority here. The information is conflicting and apparently they are just as clueless as to what this section is as us.
I guess the reason for the lack of motorway status at Praveshki Hanove is that when it was built, they ran out of funds and to save some money, they decided to make the tunnel and the bridge narrower than planned by not including shoulders. However without shoulders, it does not fulfil the standards for a motorway so they decided to place signs that it is not a motorway.
Why is that not the case on any of the tunnels on the Struma motorway though, even on the 2km long Zheleznitsa tunnel opened recently? I hate how inconsistent our motorway network is, even on safety-related features. A tunnel can have a speed limit of 80 or 90 without any reason why. Near Ihtiman on Trakia there is a speed limit of 70 in the eastbound carriageway since a truck crashed into the tunnel supports years ago, but the police openly said our speed limits from 140 to 70 are placed illegally so we’ll just not patrol this area entirely.
There are lots of silly situations on Bulgaria’s roads, but no matter how silly, if someone correctly maps it in detail, I think we should respect the work of the mapper and not “simplify” it.
The problem is that such “trunk” segments in the middle of a motorway are a red flag for any validator (be it human or not). A lot cleaner option would be to map the signs and add motorway=no to the respective segments, possibly with note:motorway explaining the situation.
