<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>A couple thoughts:</DIV>
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<DIV>1) Commercial data providers have use a "route type" parameter that designates something as an Interstate, Federal Highway, State Highway, County Road, or Farm-to-Market road. This code does not distinguish between states; all state highways have the same "route type". General practice is to use the same highway shield for all states; you don't get the "Beehive" sign for Utah. :)</DIV>
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<DIV>This is an opportunity for OSM to distinguish itself; if local users contribute Highway signs from their region - down to very specialized signs for something like "Kettle Moraine Scenic Route" in Southeast Wisconsin - they'll have something the commercial vendors don't provide. However, there should be something clearly identify a route as a state, county/parish, farm-to-market road/ whatever, so a default shield could be picked.</DIV>
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<DIV>2) I don't like the "is_in" approach - the "US:CA" approach seems to offer all the appropriate information in the same place. However, if there was a way to explicitly state that this is a state route, that would help in the situation mentioned above.</DIV>
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<DIV>3) There should be a place for people to contribute highway shields - as metadata. Respecifying highway shields for every route would be prone to omissions. In the case of "Kettle Moraine Scenic Route" - it's so specialized, it may make sense to apply the sign to the route itself. But having a place to submit a library of highway shields as metadata - that would be good.<BR></DIV>
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<B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Zeke Farwell <ezekielf@gmail.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> Talk-us <talk-us@openstreetmap.org><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:50:20 AM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [Talk-us] US Route Tagging With Relations<BR></FONT><BR>Chris,<BR>
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<DIV>Thanks for putting up that table. Looks great. I have two suggestions:</DIV>
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<DIV>I think the network identifiers should be simpler. What about this scheme? </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=webkit-indent-blockquote style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 40px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none"> <BR>Interstate = Interstate signed highway system<BR>US = US signed highway system<BR>[state abbr.] = State signed highway system<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=webkit-indent-blockquote style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 40px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none">TX = Texas<BR>CA = California<BR>OR = Oregon<BR>etc...<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=webkit-indent-blockquote style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 40px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none">County or other networks should just be the county name or TN Secondary, etc...<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<DIV>To avoid duplicate network values (CA stands for California and Canada) we can use the "is_in" key the same way it is used for place names. So a California route relation would have these tags:</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE class=webkit-indent-blockquote style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 40px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none">network: CA<BR>is_in: United States<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<DIV>Or a county road system in california:</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE class=webkit-indent-blockquote style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 40px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none">network: Marin Co<BR>is_in: California, United States<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<DIV>This way we don't clutter up the network name, but we keep the differentiating information.</DIV>
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<DIV>My other suggestion is that I don't thing the symbol key is necessary. I think the renderers should be able to assign a symbol based on the network and is_in tags once they get to that stage. This way they symbols will stay more consistent and we won't get US highway shields that look slightly different throughout the country.</DIV>
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<DIV>Thoughts?</DIV>
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<DIV>Zeke</DIV>
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