[Tagging] ref tags and "reference routes"

[Richard Finegold]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 11:57, Richard Welty <rwelty at averillpark.net> wrote:
> On 2/3/10 2:20 PM, Liz wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Feb 2010, Richard Welty wrote:
>>
>>> so should a reference route designation that isn't on a sign go in a ref
>>> tag or not? the wiki doesn't
>>> discuss this. if ref shouldn't have this, perhaps a variant on ref is
>>> needed?
>>>
>> Those sort of 'internal reference numbers' are used heavily in New South
>> Wales. They aren't easy to work out and don't help with navigation. They would
>> need a non-rendering tag - no use a router trying to send me down 'MR380'
>>
> the ones in NY are not exactly secrets; the average driver is not aware
> of them, but anyone who
> fools around with maps and roads in NY knows about them:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reference_routes_in_New_York
>
> in particular, they show up on the small green reference markers that
> are on all state maintained
> roads at 0.10 mile intervals.
>
> some of them are in the tiger import data for NY; i see them scattered
> about. i don't think they
> should be rendered by default, but i think they're reasonably useful to
> have there.

You say some reference route numbers don't appear on signs. I can
think of two possibilities to explain this:

1) The state maintained road doesn't have a small green reference
marker. Maybe it's too short, or maybe any markers that would be
present are frequently stolen.

2) The small green reference markers are not considered signs, and the
web page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NY_51_old_and_new_ref_mkrs.jpg
should have "[[Category:Road signs in New York]]" in the wiki source
deleted.

Are either of these correct?