Route du Président-Kennedy (Saint-Georges to Maine USA): trunk road or not?

My thinking is that not all population centre pairs warrant a trunk between them. The smaller they are, and the more distant they are, the more likely that in practice there isn’t a meaningful amount of direct traffic between them.

Some examples of population centres with a highway between them that isn’t currently tagged as a trunk are Timmins and Wawa, or Val-d’Or and Saguenay.

The question is about where we draw the line for distance vs population, and in Quebec, that line seems to me to look pretty good when we draw it at CMAs and NHS core routes.

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That seems reasonable when looking at Québec alone, but Québec does not exist in isolation. Although this discussion has been framed as just about the segment of Route 173 between Saint-George, QC and the USA border, it is really about the whole route between Québec City and Portland, ME. There should either be a trunk route or a primary route consisting of US 201 and QC 173. The current state of one being trunk and the other being primary doesn’t make sense. The decision of which classification to choose should be made collectively by both Québec and Maine mappers.

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Lol, it seems I didn’t actually miss the thread but just erased it from my memory!

Au niveau régional, la hiérarchie habituellement utilsée dans OSM est largement suffisante pour classifier les différents types de routes. La classification highway=trunk se justifie pour représenter des routes inter-régionales ou internationales avec un bon niveau de traffic en transit. C’est loin d’être le cas pour la route Senneterre - Lac Saint-Jean au Québec ou
la route entre Saint-Georges Qc et Waterville Maine. Cela se justifie un peu plus pour la route 138 dans Charlevoix avec infrastructure adéquate et villes / villages tout le long. Mais même là, le transit longue distance vers la Côte-Nord et Terre-Neuve se fait davantage via les traversiers de Rivière-du-Loup - Saint-Siméon et Matane - Baie Comeau qui permettent transit en provenance de Québec, Montréal et Maritimes via autoroutes.

Tel qu’indiqué sur déjà longue discussion sur talk-ca en 2022, nous ne sommes pas d’accord pour réviser la hiérarchie des routes et simplement remplacer highway=primary par highway=trunk tel que proposé.

On ne peut justifier d’adopter highway=trunk dans une zone peu densément peuplée avec infrastructure routière et services minimaux. On ne peut justifier une hiérarchie hyper simplifiée avec highway=residential / highway=tertiary / highway=trunk. Selon la logique proposée, il faudrait réviser la classification de plusieurs routes au Québec et ailleurs au Canada pour s’harmoniser avec la vision d’un contributeur qui cartographie dans une région forestière très peu densément peuplée au nord de la Nouvelle-Angleterre où il y a peu de transit. On ne cartographie pas pour le rendu ou pour les outils de navigation.

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:face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth: Some Québécois would find that to be a very inflammatory political statement, hahaha.

I 100% agree about cooperating to find the most acceptable (or least objectionable…) solution to all. That said, I don’t agree with the premise that the entirety of US 201 and Quebec Route 173—at least, from St-Georges to the border (i.e. not including from St-Georges to Québec City, as Autoroute 73 parallels the route and is definitely far more important and is already tagged motorway)—ought to be uniformly tagged primary or trunk all the way along. It’s perfectly reasonable to me that US 201 may be more important to the road network in Maine and to Mainers than Route 173 is to Quebeckers, and one merits ‘higher’ classification than the other.

I mentioned this in my reply to the discussion about Manitoba PTH 10 that I linked earlier. I didn’t quote the full paragraph earlier, but I went on to write:

Physical construction isn’t the sole determinant of a highway’s importance but… man, you guys really do have far more substantial highway infrastructure down there. And I sincerely believe there are stretches of highway that are far more important south of the border than north of the border. Again, that example of I-15 in Montana vs. Alberta Hwy 4? I don’t even question for a second tagging I-15 with higher importance; it IS more important. It’s bigger, better built, better maintained, better signed… Everything about it is a step up.

From where I live in Southern Alberta, if I was planning a trip to anywhere east of Thunder Bay, Ontario, I would dive south into the States instead of going around the north side of the Great Lakes. It wouldn’t even cross my mind to go through Northern Ontario; that’s the long way. Our patchwork of interprovincial roads is laughable compared to the Interstate Highway System.

As much as you’ve stressed the importance of considering “the whole route between Québec City and Portland, ME”, we also need to consider the tagging within the greater context of the Québec and overarching Canadian road networks. Where I really bristle at the idea of ‘upgrading’ Québec Route 173 to trunk is that it would make it equal in stature to e.g. Ontario Highway 7 between Peterborough and Ottawa, or Ontario Hwy 17 between Thunder Bay, Sault-Ste-Marie & Sudbury. Those are far more important to the overall road network than Route 173 from St-Georges to the US border.

It’s not as though primary highways aren’t still important, they’re just not as important/big/busy/etc as trunks. I don’t think that’s espousing an unreasonable position on it. :no_mouth:

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C’est précisément ce qui m’inquiète: revoir le réseau routier de tout le pays pour l’harmoniser. Dans le contexte du Québec et du reste du Canada, je ne trouve tout simplement pas que cela ait du sens. :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

Je ne propose pas de changer toute hiérarchie des routes du Québec. Il y a des exceptions au guides.

Il serait bien de décrire les critères et les enlignés avec ceux des provinces et états avoisinants. C’est quoi la distinction entre primary et trunk

Certaines routes, dont la 20 et la 50 ont des tronçons qui ne respectent pas les critères de motorway et devrait plutôt être trunk puisque ceux ci sont seulement une autoroute a 2 voies contiguës.

Ce n’est pas juste un contributeur mais le consensus global aux États-Unis
Même selon les guidelines existantes, il y a des segments qui ne sont pas bien classifiés.

I agree that the rest of the length is fine at primary as autoroute 73 is the main rotue as you’ve said.

We’re only talking about the segment between the Maine border and Saint-Georges.

Yes, in that case there is a clear distinction.
The interstate doesn’t have at grade crossings while Alberta Hwy 4 does.

In this case, from what I can see on satelitte imagery and street side imagery, they both are 2 lane highways that cross through small towns and are basically a rural highway.

What’s wrong with harmonizing highway classifications? There doesn’t need to be radical changes to classifications…

Why would mappers in Maine decide that Quebec City is an important regional population center to account for in their highway classification? Why can’t we also take into account Maine?

The golden rule for mapping in OSM is to tag what is on the ground, although some discussions/decisions on how to tag can deviate from this (e.g. highway=trunk). These decisions eventually generate the type of discussion we are having now, but oh well.

I agree with @hoserab, we can work to find a solution acceptable to all, but I fail to see how to objectify this change. What is on the ground does not look like a trunk (I know the area), and using criteria based on census data/distances seem unworkable to me.

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Okay, maybe I should have added some guillemets to «harmoniser». :smile: What I worry about is this setting a precedent, whereby reclassifying this road snowballs into unnecessarily or inappropriately reclassifying roads all over the damn place.

And maybe I should restate: I think it already is “harmonized”. It’s tagged with highway=primary because it is a more important connection than secondary, but not as important as trunk. It seems perfectly reasonable to me the way it is.

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Each road should be looked at individually, to ascertain it’s connectivity importance. Nobody should be going around reclassifying roads all over the place, especially without community input
The guidelines that are currently in place are mostly good. There are exceptions to them. The community consensus on the different factors of trunk vs primary should be documented in the wiki

Nobody is saying that the current guidelines should be complely thrown out the window, they shouuld be improved upon, and documented just as the US has done.

Even the current guidelines (both Canadian and the generic documentation on the tags wiki) are not being respected, take for example this segment of A50 Way: ‪Autoroute Guy-Lafleur‬ (‪1149281293‬) | OpenStreetMap

Why should it be a motorway? It’s not a divided highway (at least not yet), yett definitely has most of the charecteristics of a motorway, and thus expressway=yes would be more appropriate.

I have messaged some users that have edited US 201 recently to participate in the thread and help us understand what lead them to upgrade it to trunk

Although I was one of the people opposing cm81447’s mass highway edits, there was one in particular that I did agree with which was their change to upgrade US 201 to trunk. I don’t think we have any prominent Maine editors knowledgeable on highways here but other users around the US who’ve given their input have been leaning towards upgrading this highway to trunk on the basis that it links the area towards Portland towards Quebec City. I think this makes sense from a US perspective where highway=trunk has evolved from referring to a limited-access highway or some other high-speed, high-capacity road into being applied to any kind of major trans-regional artery that links major metro areas where there isn’t already a motorway (the only exceptions being truck routes and toll road bypasses/shunpikes). I do recognize that many other countries and regions with more organized highway systems than the US and its states do not follow this agenda and would rather use a number-based highway classification system, given that highway numbers likely mean more there than in the US. However, considering Quebec is a part of Canada and basically the rest of the country has adopted a US-like highway classification strategy, it would make sense more Quebec to also adopt it, but that’s just the dilemma of me, someone who doesn’t live in nor has ever been to Quebec.

Regarding US 201 specifically, even with its varying speed limits, two-lane construction, and remoteness, I still agree that highway=trunk is the best classification here since US 201 is the primary artery between the most populous area of Maine and the most populous area of Quebec. I’m not entirely opposed to US 201’s trunk route just terminating at the US-Canada border like that, although in my opinion I think it makes sense to have that trunk route continue to its final destination.

Now regarding Route 173, considering that Autoroute 73 just ends at Saint-Georges, would it be sensible to consider that route from there as a “spiritual” continuation of 73 since there’s no other way to get the border?

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Uhhhh… when? There’s a two-and-a-half-year-old draft on the wiki, which was presented in concert with a discussion on the mailing list, which included:

Je ne vois pas ce qu’il y a à modifier dans la classification actuelle des routes, a tout le moins pour le Québec dont je connais mieux la réalité que pour les autres provinces. Le réseau routier principal est bien documenté par le Ministère des transports du Québec et nous utilisons ces références.

translation

“I don’t see what there is to change in the current classification of roads, at least for Québec, the reality of which I know better than for the other provinces. The main road network is well documented by the Québec Ministry of Transportation and we use these references.”

Je suis aussi d’accord qu’au Québec ce qui est en place est très bien et cohérent avec la numérotation provinciale, je toucherais pas à ça.

translation

“I also agree that in Quebec what is in place is very good and consistent with the provincial numbering, I would not touch it.”

Personally I quite like the existing tagging and don’t really see the need to retag everything.
It isn’t clear to me what the advantage of retagging everything is.
You loose [sic] the sense of local ownership if you move to standardised tagging and in this case where it is not black and white I fail to see any advantage.

I feel the same as you do John, and I also like the way it is right now. So I would like to understand the issues they want to fix and I don’t get it yet. As the saying goes, it if aint broken don’t fix it.

I don’t think you have consensus and you are trying to push something
through.

On this statement below, I will ask again, what is it that is broken ? What is it that needs fixing ? It may be obvious to you that it needs fixing but for many experienced mappers the trunk tag is just fine and there is nothing wrong with it. So in a sentence or two, not a one pager, can you explain what is it that needs fixing. That they have done something in the USA is not the answer. Thank you.

What is broken and what is the benefit of this fix? I am not suggesting it is not valid but I am curious what brought this up as a need.

Forcing classifications based solely on their connectivity between population centres certainly won’t work. The construction is just as much a factor in determining the classification. Belleville Street in downtown Victoria is officially part of BC 17 linking to a ferry to the US, but I personally think it’s already too high at primary (especially between Menzies and the ferry terminal). Upgrading it even further to trunk would be absurd.

I get the impression you want to map for the render and are ignoring
community input.

I don’t see overwhelming support to make substantial changes across
Canada. What I am seeing is community input being ignored.

I accept some local mappers may decide to change classifications based on
local knowledge such as the number of coffee bars on the highway but I’m
not quite clear how that affects the highway tag.

Martin wrote “If it was just me I would put them [trunk] back as primary except the sections where they are built bigger”.
I agree! Many years ago someone changed the tagging of a lot of primary roads to “trunk” for “conceptual” reasons. I do not want to see this happen again.

Ce qui est proposé ici est de modifier la classification pour un meilleur rendu sur la carte à des zooms inférieurs ou pour influencer la priorisation de routes particulières dans les outils de navigation routière. Il est habituellement déconseillé par la communauté OSM d’agir ainsi.

translation

“What is proposed here is to modify the classification for better rendering on the map at lower zooms or to influence the prioritization of particular roads in road navigation tools. It is usually not recommended by the OSM community to do this.”

Dude, seriously, do not use the word consensus. You have nothing close to a consensus on this. None.

:face_with_diagonal_mouth:

Couldn’t tell you when it began, but glancing around at all of the other provinces and territories, it’s apparent that they’ve collectively adopted using highway=trunk to apply to any highway which serves to connect major towns and cities—including those which have surface street or 2-lane uncontrolled segments—while Quebec remains on using a mostly physical construction-based classification strategy.

I look around the map at the other provinces and I see it following the current tagging guidelines:

A highway=trunk is a roadway that has limited access and is part of the national highway system, as defined by the Council of Ministers, an intergovernmental agency with representatives from each province and territory. Maintenance of these highways is under provincial jurisdiction.

The full inventory can be found here (PDFs).

The surface=* does not need to be paved, nor is it assumed to be paved. As in many regions of Canada (far north in the Yukon / Northwest Territories, there is no need for it to be paved, as there is not a high volume of traffic. But it still has that national level of importance. This is the core cross-Canada road network, and it should be viewable at low zoom levels.

One quick peek at the NHS map shows that we’re pretty much following that one-for-one. Those National Highway System “routes” are defined as key interprovincial and international corridor routes [with] links to key intermodal facilities and major border crossings that connect to these routes, so… yeah, they connect major towns and cities. Of course they do.

You say “Quebec remains on using a mostly physical construction-based classification strategy” but you’ve got the causal relationship between trunk tagging and physical construction backwards. They’re not tagged trunk because they’re built to a higher level of construction: they’re built to a higher level of construction because they are important routes that (coincidentally) merit trunk tags in OSM.

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To my eyes that map appears to show a route going all the way from Québec City to the Maine border. It is a bit low resolution so a little hard to tell, but the blue diamonds seem to represent border crossings. Am I missing something?

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Right, and it’s coloured in red because it’s a “feeder route”, not a “core route”, and the “feeder routes”—like route 112 from Sherbrooke to Autoroute 73, or Route 155 up to Saguenay—are tagged primary.

Interesting. I didn’t see anything about core vs feeder routes in the current tagging guidelines you linked to and I see many feeder routes across Canada currently tagged trunk. On the other side of Maine, New Brunswick feeder routes 8, 11, and 17 are all trunk as is Nova Scotia feeder route 103. What’s the logic there?

What about the NHS Northern/Remote routes?

I see that some mappers have taken it upon themselves to change the tagging in the Maritimes; I don’t know why.

Elsewhere, the feeder and northern/remote routes are generally primary. E.g. BC Hwy 37, Alta. Hwy 28, Manitoba PTH 60, Ontario Hwy 144.

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There is something actually. The guideline cites the National Highway System documentation and defines “Trunk” as being “the core cross-Canada road network”, not the core and feeder cross-Canada road network.

It doesn’t seem one-to-one, because comparing this map to how things are tagged on OpenStreetMap, Quebec has a lot of limited-access highway-based tagging. Around Alma, the Route 169 and 170 trunk routes are disconnected from each other, and in major metropolitan areas like Quebec City and Montreal, there also are a lot of limited-access boulevards and highways tagged as trunk which probably would be over-classified if they weren’t limited-access, considering they only link to tertiary and secondary roads.

Like Zeke pointed out, there’s also no consistency with how core and feeder routes are tagged. Within Quebec, there are some of examples of this too, like Route 139 to the town of Cowansville being trunk but 79 to the US border being primary, despite both being feeders.