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

[Craig Wallace]

On 2015-11-06 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.

There's not really any 'multiplexes' in the UK.
There are a few places where A roads appear to overlap.for a short 
distance. But its really one road number disappearing, while the other 
continues. So each section of road will only have one official number, 
and only one of the road numbers will be signposted.

Yes, cycle routes do follow numbered roads. But that doesn't change the 
number of the road, it still only has one main ref. If you asked someone 
cycling along there, they would still say they are on the A24.