[Tagging] Proposal: Sunset ref=* on ways in favor of relations

[Andy Townsend]

On 06/11/2015 13:44, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 7:02 AM, Andy Townsend <ajt1047 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:ajt1047 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Obviously in places where a road can have multiple equivalent
>     references (such as the US) route relations perfect sense (as does
>     figuring out which routes are actually signed on which bits of
>     road) but in places where there's only one real ref per piece of
>     tarmac (such as the UK) there's no need to force mappers to start
>     maintaining relations as well as just recording the reference.
>
>
> Well, I believe impetus for route relations was Sustrans networks.  
> These tags went from the ways to relations years ago already, so call 
> me skeptical that there's no multiplexes in the UK (especially since 
> without any real effort inside 30 seconds, just randomly scrolling by 
> hand to the UK, I see that the A24 and RCN CS7 are multiplexed).  I 
> honestly don't see why we should be treating tags related to 
> route=road any different than we're already treating route=bicycle.
>

Sure - there are lots of route relations (such as Sustrans' cycle 
networks) in the UK, but (over here) that's separate from the reference 
of the road.  It's also fair to say that Sustrans' route labelling can 
be "variable", to the point where "the signs on the ground", "the route 
they'd like to use" and "the official current sustrans route" can be 
three different things.  As an aside, Sustrans recently changed their 
official route for some routes just south of where I live to match the 
signs on the ground (and therefore OSM, which was mapped from those) as 
what OSM had was actually more a more sensible route than what they 
had.  Where there is this variability in signing, you can't always 
expect someone (especially a new mapper) to fill in all the details of 
cycle routes that a bit of road is part of, though a cycling fan can 
usually come along and fill in the gaps.  However a new mapper can read 
the reference on normal road signs and should be able to fill in the 
"ref" on the way without difficulty.  The tricky bit (in the US) is 
having a UI in e.g. iD that can guide them through the "add to existing 
nearby route relation".

Both iD and P2 can show nearby relations, but for example at 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/53.07007/-2.04161 both also show in 
the relations that you might want to add to a way the relations that a 
way is already part of, and super-relations of other relations (which it 
doesn't need to be added to).

None of this is easy, and iD (correctly in my view) tries to hide 
relation functionality if it can.  I'm just suggesting to try and keep 
it simple where its possible to do so (i.e. don't create route relations 
where it's possible to express the same concept in a simpler way).

Cheers,

Andy (SomeoneElse)




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