Template talk:Road infrastructure in Western Australia

Classification

The Classification on this is a bit vague. If we are classifying metropolitan highways as roads with the word "highway" in them, then Wanneroo Road shouldn't be there, but if we are classifying metropolitan highways as roads proclaimed to be a highway, then Karrinyup Road, Morley Drive, Marmion Avenue, South Street, High Street, Orrong Road, Stock Road and a bunch of others should be there. Same goes with Highways and Major Roads.

Also, how are freeways classified. If it is just roads with the word "freeway" in them, than the current list is fine, but if we include all controlled access roads, then parts of Tonkin Highway, Reid Highway and Roe Highway should be there as well. Silkkappa168 (talk) 00:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Deciding what is a highway is a bit messy because of there are lots of different classification schemes, and this template isn't actually following any of them entirely.

• Firstly, you can just look at the name, which is the approach taken by List of highways in Australia – if it includes "highway" then it's a highway, otherwise its not a highway. This probably comes closest to the "common usage" of the term, but can turn up some strange anomalies, like the southern section of Forrest Highway was previously named "Old Coast Road", even though it functioned more like a highway.
• Or, you could use the legal definitions per the Main Roads Act, which is the approach taken by List of highways in Western Australia. This also has some unexpected results – some roads with highway names aren't legally highways, like Great Southern Highway; and for the many cases there isn't a 1-to-1 mapping to common street names of road – sometimes parts of the named road aren't part of the highway (e.g. the "H6 Great Northern Highway" part of Great Northern Highway starts at Reid Highway rather than in Midland); or other named roads are included in the highway (e.g. "H52 Brookton Highway" continues on way past Brookton to Ravensthorpe, via other named roads); or the highway name is totally different from anything in common usage (e.g. "H28 Karrinyup–Morley Highway" for most of Karrinyup Road and Morley Drive); and there's some odd ones that don't seem like typical highways (e.g. "H37 Garratt Road Bridge").
• Or, you could use the functional classification scheme described at Highways in Australia#Western Australia, and then you don't have any highways – the top-level classification is "Primary Distributor"
• Or, you could use the road routes, but unlike lots of other countries around the world they aren't the primary way we refer to our roads, and it doesn't really work well.

Given that this template is just meant to be for quick navigation between articles, for a general audience who probably hasn't even thought "what actually is a highway?", doing it by name seems like choice that will get them what they want with the fewest surprises. - Evad37 [talk] 06:13, 17 February 2018 (UTC)