Tag:highway=residential

The highway=residential tag is used on roads that provide access to, or within, residential areas but which are not normally used as through routes. Most traffic on a residential road will be for the access to, or from, residential properties, but may have also some transit traffic. Roads carrying primarily through traffic, or non-residential traffic, should instead be tagged with another highway tag (e.g. unclassified, tertiary) as appropriate (see highways). Roads to individual dwellings would normally be tagged as highway=service (and likely service=driveway).

For tagging in towns and cities, it can be useful to consider the following:

• residential – street or road generally used for local traffic within the settlement. Primarily used for access to residential properties but may include access to some non-residential properties (e.g. a corner shop or convenience store). Likely to have lower speed limits or traffic calming measures in place.
• unclassified – roads with the lowest priority in the interconnecting road network. Use instead of highway=residential when the traffic is not just for residential access, even if residential properties may also be accessed by this road.
• tertiary – usage is dependent upon local mapping conventions, but is often used on a linking or connecting road with low to moderate traffic. May still be in a residential area, and may have residential properties abutting it, but will normally connect up multiple residential roads, local centers of activity, or other suburbs.

See also:

• highway=living_street - a street where pedestrians have priority over cars, children can play on the street, maximum speed is low.
• highway=service - a service road for access to a building, service station, beach, campsite, industrial estate, business park, etc.

How to map

To map a residential way nothing else other than a simple way is required. Add the highway=residential tag to it and a name=* if appropriate.

United States – TIGER data import

Further information: TIGER fixup#Wrong highway classifications

The large scale TIGER data input of United States street data overused the highway=residential tag. A significant proportion of these roads could be tagged as highway=unclassified or highway=tertiary under the guideline mentioned above.