Dear Nathan_A_RF:

The area:highway=* tag is widely used worldwide in all continents, to tag areas occupied by different highways. There is some controversy with highways that have a constant width, that in that case it might be redundant, but anyhow, as user rskedgell points to you, you should always contact the involved users before you mass delete features/geometries that you may think aren't needed or too old, but they are actually quite normal and give information.

I guess many if not all of those geometries should be back in the map.

Best regards,

Rafael Avila Coya, on behalf of the OSM Foundation, Data Working Group.

[Ticket#2024022910000165]