Newbie: How do I tag mixed-use roads in urban areas? And what are ter

General talk
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Hi, I’m new to OSM and have started off by adding residential streets near where I live? So far I’ve tagged all of these with ‘highway=residential’.

I’ve just mapped some streets which branch off a shopping high street. They are short, mostly cul-de-sacs, and contain a mixture of terraced houses and some businesses. The businesses are generally not shops on the side streets, but small manufacturing or service industry employers.

The highway=residential tag doesn’t seem right for these roads, even though they have some housing on them. What should I use instead?

Also, on a slightly related subject … when should I use the tag highway=tertiary? I have read the OSM wiki and understand the description:

“A “C” road in the UK. Generally for use on roads wider than 4 metres (13’) in width, and for faster/wider minor roads that aren’t A or B roads. In the UK, they tend to have dashed lines down the middle, whereas unclassified roads don’t.”

However, is it right to label a road as tertiary just because it looks like one? What if I can’t come up with any evidence to back up what is essentially guesswork?

How would you label a High Street through a small village or suburb, which has a few shops on it but isn’t an ‘A’ or ‘B’ road?

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Tertiary is a bit “if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then…”. My rule of thumb is “does it go anywhere?”. If plenty of people use it as part of a longer route, and it’s sufficiently wide and well maintained, it’s tertiary; if you’d only really use it to get to its immediate surroundings, or it’s narrow, then it’s highway=unclassified.

For the streets branching off the High Street, perhaps the best thing to do would be highway=residential, but put some landuse areas in the right places around it.

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Thanks for your help. Looks like I’ll have to go back and do another survey! I’ve been recording the roads, but not specifically where the houses and business are.