Hi there! You might want to take a look at my changeset history, I recently did a lot of road reclassifications, and I'm only just now learning about the tagging guidelines.

As you might have guessed, the reason why I'd like to make all these changes is because I am quite unsatisfied with the fact that *every* major road in Vancouver, no matter how big, is tagged as highway=secondary, no matter its actual size or traffic volumes. For instance, having King Edward Ave and 41st Ave be the same is quite disingenuous to me.

I took a look at the page you linked, and yeah, I see why things were this way before, but I do think that is too restrictive and pushes way too many roads to be of lower classifications than I think best represents them.

I was planning on moving to Burnaby, Richmond and North Van next and giving it the same treatment, but now that you bring up the tagging guidelines proposal, maybe I'll put this on hold and see if we can make revisions to those first.

But I do think that these are all things that need to be done. I can't stand having Willingdon Ave portrayed as a mere secondary...

From what I found, the official northbound route actually follows exit 41B off the Oak St Brg to SW Marine, then continues onto Granville. Oak St is fully signed as "TO BC 99" from the bridge all the way to Broadway, with signage directing drivers to Granville via 41st, and another at Broadway.
So the official highway route doesn't use 41st at all, but the signage treats Oak as a sort of "highway alternate" for almost all its length.

But regarding 70th, I'm not sure it feels right to make that a trunk, especially considering there are much beefier roads nearby such as Granville and Marine. I'd be willing to bump it up to a highway=primary though, to put it on par with 41st and Broadway as the main access points between Granville and Oak.

So I did some digging into the official highway routes and made some additional changes in changeset/187011453, including marking all of Granville St as highway=trunk. Let me know if you have any more suggestions!

Hello! So the reason I did this (along with my other reclassification changesets) was because I was quite unsatisfied that in Metro Vancouver, highway=trunk and highway=primary were being used to delineate roads signed as highways (Granville, Kingsway), and that all the other large roads, no matter how large, were classified as secondary and below. For instance, both Knight St and King Edward Ave were classified as highway=secondary, which I didn't like.

Digging into the tagging guidelines, I do see now that it is recommended to use highway=trunk for highways such as BC99. I see your point in reconnecting it with highway=trunk roads, but there is quite some ambiguity to the BC99 route in Vancouver. Government database suggests connecting to Oak at 70th, new signage suggests connecting at 41st, some old signs suggest looping from the Oak St Bridge via exit 41B to proceed up Granville, etc. It's super confusing so if we want to reconnect them we'd have to determine a position on this.

Yeah, when I visited during the preparatory works I originally mapped this segment as a single 6-lane road, but after seeing it in its finished condition I decided to map the central busway separately. It feels like the kind of thing where if it *were* permanent, it would have some sort of physical barrier.

Hi there, I ended up deleting this barrier as it wasn't very accurate to begin with - I will admit that I jumped the gun by plotting the barrier based on Broadway Subway's published access diagrams, which didn't turn out to be accurate.
The real barrier is considerably longer and it might have extended all the way to Yukon. Hopefully this could get checked and updated soon!

Fair enough, I'll probably come back after a short while and fix it eventually if no one gets to it. Thanks for the info!

Hi there, I'm a bit confused by the changes here. It looks like you created a new node for the new bus stop, but then you moved the old node to the new location, rather than the new node? It's a bit confusing which is which here, and it seems you might have accidentally moved the wrong one.
Mind double-checking?
Thanks!

Hmm, I'm a bit hesitant if this is the best way to represent the current layout at Cambie+KingEd. Because those two bike paths aren't properly connected to the road, the two cycleway links seem to suggest a somewhat unsafe movement that those bike paths are probably not built for. I'm not sure it's a good idea to map those movements until the work is done and we know for sure what the intended movements are for those.

It seems like the current use of those two bike paths is actually to act as temporary sidewalks, at least for those tiny segments right next to the corner. Because it is usually prohibited to cycle in sidewalks, I added "bicycle=no", which is a bit unorthodox for "highway=cycleway". Maybe it would be better to change those to "bicycle=dismount" instead?

I made a revision to this area in changeset/183053444; feel free to let me know your thoughts!

Hi there, this edit is not accurate. While aerial and street-level imagery still shows West 5th Avenue as a bus-only road, this street is now open to all traffic since the opening of the Granville Connector in July 2025. I have corrected these tags and added a "check_date" in an attempt to avoid further confusion!

Just want to chime in with my own observations: I also surveyed the area a couple days ago and it's actually quite unclear. The installed overhead turn lane signage reads "buses and local traffic only", but there is also a temporary stand-up sign placed on the ground that says "no left turn except buses".
At the time I visited, there was no enforcement personnel, and I saw many private cars taking the left turn anyways.

Either way, I do not believe that this small connection contains the amount of infrastructure necessary to meet the criteria of a busway. It is at best a bus-only link road, but due to the conflicting restriction signage, even the bus-only restriction is debatable.

Thanks all! I've been lurking without an account and thinking about possible solutions to this myself ever since COV renamed Trutch St to šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm St.

I was considering making an account and proposing something similar back then, but it was much harder to justify as the City had never agreed upon a consistent single-line name including both terms. But this time it was much easier to justify since the Province does seem to have such a single-line name for this.

Anyways, I think I'll go ahead with this and put my flag in the ground for my first edit. Thanks for the replies!

Hi there, new contributor here. I've been following the Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project for a while now, but only just gotten into OSM. I saw this discussion and there is actually one more point I want to bring up.

I can already tell that there's going to be people who will keep editing the "name" tag back and forth between "stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge" and "Riverview Bridge". Even if you can justify one way or the other, there will always be someone who disagrees and edits it back, and it takes time and effort to keep reverting them.

Would it be possible instead to have the "name" tag contain both language names? For example, if you go the Current Works page on the project website, notice that they consistently refer to the bridge as the "stal̕əw̓asəm (Riverview) Bridge".

https://www.pattullobridgereplacement.ca/construction/current-works/

I think using "stal̕əw̓asəm (Riverview) Bridge" for the "name" tag would be a good compromise between choosing one or the other. It would result in a much lower likelihood of disagreement and edit wars, and it also does not imply rejection or disregard to either one of the two names.

Do you see any possible issues with this? I'm curious to know your thoughts.