Recently there’s been a number of changes to road classification in the GTA, especially in the primary/secondary categories. We noticed it when the base map changed, but they probably would have benefited from local discussion.
I saw elsewhere on the forum there are rolling threads for discussing ongoing or evergreen topics, and one of the benefits I’ve seen is that it lets people post a quick suggestion or thought and see if other nearby mappers agree. It might be nice to chat with other local mappers and see what they’re thinking.
(In the event this thread does get unmanageably large, we can split it by years or something.)
Recent changes I saw that I imagine might be of interest:
Allen Road in Toronto was downgraded from motorway to primary in a number of changesets, and there was discussion about this in Changeset: 175462379 | OpenStreetMap. This change has now been reverted. I personally agree it should be a motorway since it matches the built-form definition of OSM motorway (dual carriageway, full access control, grade-separated interchanges)
Major Mac in Vaughan (400 to 427) was upgraded from secondary to primary in Changeset: 175597869 | OpenStreetMap. I have reverted this change for now, if only on procedural grounds (non-local mapper who didn’t discuss the change and used a generic “edited roads” changeset message), but if local York Region mappers agree this classification makes sense, I am ok with them re-upgrading it
Davis Drive in Newmarket (400 to 404) was upgraded from secondary to primary in Changeset: 175598254 | OpenStreetMap by the same mapper as above. I have reverted it with much the same situation as above
Yonge Street in York Region (Highway 7 to Major Mac) was upgraded from secondary to primary in Changeset: 175813421 | OpenStreetMap, with decently extensive comment (“a 3-lane arterial with centre-median Viva Rapidway, median stations, continuous bike lanes and sidewalks, and design prioritizing high through traffic and rapid transit”). Personally I am fine with this change but other York Region mappers might want to check it out
Feel free to discuss these changes, or other road changes in southern Ontario in this thread!
Hi Jarek, I was the one who changed the Yonge Street Classification. If you would like, here is reasons why: support extending highway=primary on Yonge Street north from Highway 7 to Major Mackenzie.
This section functions as a high-capacity through arterial and a regional transit spine rather than a strictly local street. The existing cross section with three traffic lanes, a centre median Viva Rapidway with median stations, continuous protected cycle tracks and sidewalks materially increases person throughput and prioritizes rapid, uninterrupted transit movement. Extending the primary classification preserves logical network continuity between Highway 7 and Major Mackenzie, improves routing fidelity for transit and long-distance routing engines, and signals to data consumers that this corridor is intended for higher priority through movement. For these operational and semantic reasons, I recommend retaining highway=primary on the edited segment.
Also, on another note of the Davis Drive Change and the Major Mac change, I dont believe that Major Mac should be upgraded to a Primary road. It is a little bit different for Davis Drive. It does feature BRT and bike lanes, so it could be changed to a primary road. It is also hevay trafficed road and is a major York Region Road. I am based in the York Region area. I would recommend that multiple OSM Mappers in York Region figure out if that is something that should be done.
Needless to say, I dont support reclassifying Allen.
Disclaimer I am not a local to York Region. I will defer to any locals if I am corrected.
Re: Major Mac I am indifferent. I have never been up there, but I dont see any reason to upgrade it.
Re: Davis Drive, I see a stronger case here. Lots of people use this to transfer 400-404, which is justifying the Bradford Bypass up north.
Re: Yonge, I support this. If anything, I feel it ought to be extended to Davis or Bradford. It may have been decommissioned as Hwy11 but it still serves the purpose.
Yeah, I fully agree with the changes. As I said earlier, I would need multiple York Region editors to review the Major Mac change. I am based in York Region, so I could also explain some reasoning as to why it may be changed.
Regarding the primary upgrades, I am largely in agreement, I just wonder if this can be boiled down to some sort of definition that can be applied in future discussions.
From my central Toronto perspective, a lot of suburban grid arterials look like they could be primaries. I assume we don’t want to upgrade most arterials to primary? But then what makes Yonge through York Region a more important road for cars than Bathurst? Or on the topic of connecting freeways, Cawthra (currently secondary, regional road) is a better route from 410/403 to QEW than Hurontario (currently primary, former provincial).
(Note that primary/secondary/tertiary/etc classifications in OSM are determined by car and truck importance, not the total amount of people transported or destinations/POIs, so the presence of a busway doesn’t automatically make a road higher grade.)
Regarding Davis, is it favoured because it’s the only continuous street with interchanges on both 400 and 404? Do drivers in practice prefer to stay on one street even if it means going through centre of Newmarket, versus going for example a King Road-Yonge Street-Stouffville Road routing with fewer lights at cost of one left turn?
I was thinking of suggesting some downgrades in west GTA. For example the downtown Bronte intersection of what’s currently two primaries (Lakeshore Road and Bronte Road) is indeed an old town centre and two former provincial highways, but they’re both 2-3 lanes total and I struggle seeing them as more important to car traffic than any grid arterial intersection in Halton north of QEW, where intersections are huge and 4-6 lanes are the norm. I would consider downgrading the current Lakeshore Road / Plains Road in Halton from primary down to secondary.
Yeah, I agree. Honestly, Bathurst should be classified as a Primary Road up to Davis Drive. I live in that corridor, and it meets the classifications. York Region is doing some pretty extensive work on Bathurst to add bike lanes, bus lanes and a full BRT system. It could be changed to primary. I can send the work details if you would like. Davis Drive should be a primary road. I still don’t really know about Major Mac.
But then if we make Bathurst primary too, is Dufferin also a candidate? Bayview and Leslie? Most of these arterials are huge. To pick a random example, Leslie & Elgin Mills is 5-6 lanes each with turn lanes. Or would the criterion be 3 through lanes per direction?
Yeah for sure most major roads in York Region would be candidates. Rutherford would be. Dufferin would also be but only up to Major Mac Drive West. Parts of Leslie & Elgin Mills are not 3 lanes per direction. Some parts are only 1-2 so if we were to re classify some roads, I would highly recommend Rutherford road, (they added BRT, bus lanes, bike lanes, a total of 6 lanes). Dufferin could also be done but I would really only do it up to Major Mackenzie Drive West.
I’ve taken a look at other cities (NYC, Paris, London, Ottawa) and i’ve come to the conclusion that the GTA is incredibly conservative at labelling Primaries. We have practically no primaries and basically regulate it to historical & current provincial highways.
It might do us well to ignore precedent wrt primary classification and basically turn this thread into a re-primary-classification of the GTA.
Re: “What makes a road primary, and a road not primary?” I think the biggest differentiator is the level of importance that people in the area place on these roads. They are far more well known, are more arterial, and usually define the corridor compared to any neighbouring secondary streets.
In a place like York Region, York is kind of built along Yonge as opposed to Dufferin and Bayview, and is generally regarded as the N/S link as far as I can see.
Similar in Mississauga: Erin Mills Blvd and Eglinton, which are currently both secondaries.
(But on the other hand I consider London (UK) to be quite overinflated in road classification.)
The OSM definitions and guidance aren’t exhaustive, they basically say “most important” and then “next most important”. Especially in urban areas, it’s up to mappers to determine what roads are most important. And it’s really not clear if the importance is to be for people, or for cars. In rural areas that’s often the same thing, but in urban areas it’s sometimes not. Should Queen or Richmond be classified higher downtown? Depends if you’re trying to drive through, or go to a store!
In Canada the OSM categories sort of nicely mapped to administrative structure with trunk for the NHS, primary for provincial highways, then secondary for provincial subdivisions. But that then meant that Ontario has nearly no urban primary because metropolitan area highways got downgraded a long time ago.
A sort of related issue is that in our strongly gridded system, the traffic often does spread out, and at least based on traffic levels, I think it’s hard to say that some suburban grid arterials are more important than others. So for example Highway 7 through Acton and Georgetown is a pretty fair primary to me, it’s more important than the other roads, I’d guess substantially more traffic. But then it hits Brampton built-up area and the local traffic levels within Brampton probably overwhelm whatever is coming in from Georgetown, so it’s a bit hard for me to accept that Bovaird is clearly more important than surrounding arterials, even though it connects the primary from Georgetown to the 410. Similar deal with Highway 48 coming into Markham and Toronto - at some point Markham Road just doesn’t feel more important than McCowan.
That leaves us with trying to get a subjective rating of what roads are more important socially than others. But I guess that’s what the forum could be for!
Same here. Overabundance of primary roads, which incidentally minimizes usage of tertiary roads since classification already started so high.
However, considering that routing kinda works, people just let it be. In this part of the world, function takes precedence over being ‘ackshually, the technically correct..’.
I agree that Toronto’s grid makes it a bit more blurry what could be primary and secondary, but frankly, I don’t think that in the GTA “primary” reflects car flow or through capacity anymore. To me, it primarily reflects a local & cultural view of roads that are “first among equals” in the grid system.
Following from a hard definition as needing to be “above” nearby roads hits the snag that basically no roads in the GTA meet this definition, and practically all primary roads ought to be downgraded to secondary. Yonge, as an example, is not meaningfully better than Bathurst as a N/S corridor (Theoretically downtown Bathurst is worse with only 1 lane in each direction, but Yonge is practically the same as the outer lanes are frequently used for OSP), Bloor compared to Dundas & Dupont, Hwy 7 in Markham opposed to 16th Ave, Markham Rd opposed to McCowan, and so on. The only ones I can think of is perhaps Lakshore in Toronto and the Queensway in Etobicoke.
Primary roads in the GTA do not really reflect as being above other roads in the grid but rather as “first among equals”.
Obviously road design and purpose should play a role in it, but when roads are similar, the separating feature should be the local importance placed on it.
Re: Abundance of primary roads, we ought to avoid it but we are far, far from it. Tertiary is defined quite well here, the blurry line is between what ought to be secondary vs. primary.
So what needs to be done? Are we re classifying theses roads? Does Bathurst need to be reclassified? In the OSM documentation for Highway = Primary, it says that major arterial road in major cities fall under that classification, so many roads in the GTA would have to be reclassified. In reality, we can’t reclassify every road to be primary. So what would be the top priority roads that should be reclassified in the GTA?
I also do get that the map would not make sense for every single “major road” to be primary.
Before we reclassify anything, we have to agree on some definition of primary.
My view is that roads considered “first among equals” should be upgraded to primary. If we agree on this definition, then we can start discussing what to reclassify.
If we keep the status quo, then no, nothing should be reclassified.
Even if we have “first among equals”, I dont think Bathurst would apply, but others are free to inform me if I’m wrong.
Yeah, I think I’m convinced by @lastcommodore’s arguments here. So here’s what I think could be deserving of upgrading to primary in central-ish Toronto:
University Avenue / Queen’s Park / Queen’s Park Crescent up to Bloor, and York Street down to Lake Shore / Harbour Street. It is right next to Yonge but it also feels important.
Jarvis Street and Mount Pleasant Road, from Lake Shore to… hmm, Eglinton? It’s not a main street but it is a major car road, moreso than nearby secondaries
Eglinton Avenue, from Kingston Road to at least 427/401 interchange, and someone from Mississauga can comment if it should go further too
I am also OK with Lake Shore Blvd from Humber to Coxwell/Emdaabiimok being primary (I think I upgraded at least the central stretch myself), again on the basis of being a major car road. Queensway and Lake Shore west of Humber seem a bit less obviously primary to me, but not to the point where I would strenously argue against them.
Bloor/Danforth aren’t great car roads - especially in the west end I feel Dundas might actually carry more - but I am onboard with them being primary as “first among equals”.
I would like to hear thoughts of someone more familiar with Scarborough as to what should be primary there, I do feel Markham Road shouldn’t be the only one (particularly south of the 401), but I’m not extremely familiar with there.
Meanwhile I have invited risker516 to this thread by commenting on Changeset: 175131545 | OpenStreetMap - they’ve upgraded a fair amount of Toronto and Ottawa streets to primary over the past while (e.g. Queensway and Lake Shore Blvd west of the Humber).
I’m not familiar with York much so I can’t comment too well, but imo i’d upgrade Davis to Hwy 404 or 48 just based off its usefulness as a hwy link and Yonge to Davis.
You can probably give better analysis on what roads should be upgraded in York than I can.