[Tagging] Traffic sign direction tagging..

Bryan Housel bhousel at gmail.com
Fri Sep 28 02:51:40 UTC 2018


Hey Tagging List!

While reviewing a pull request to add Traffic Sign presets to iD, I came across a tagging issue with how traffic sign directions are tagged.
The details are here https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/pull/5333 <https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/pull/5333> and relevant guidance on the OSM wiki is quoted below:	

> Traffic sign as a separate node
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_sign#As_a_separate_node <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_sign#As_a_separate_node>
> Create a separate node beside the road at the position of the actual sign... You can use the `direction=*` tag to describe the facing orientation of the sign by using an angle or cardinal direction.

^ This is ok!  iD supports `direction=*` and will even render a view cone at higher zooms so mappers can see which direction it points.

> Traffic sign along a way
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_sign#As_part_of_a_way <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_sign#As_part_of_a_way>
> Create a new node within the relevant way next to the sign... You can use `traffic_sign:forward=*` to specify that this sign affects vehicles moving in the same direction as the OSM way. The opposite direction can be tagged with `traffic_sign:backward=*`. Formerly the `direction=*` key has also been used to describe the affected direction. But its common meaning has changed to Relative to Geographic North.

^ This is the problem.  The wiki says we are supposed to do something like `traffic_sign:forward=US:R1`, and we can't really do that. A preset needs to be based on a "toplevel" tag like `traffic_sign=*` not `traffic_sign:forward=*` or `traffic_sign:backward=*` (remember seamark? many of their tags have this issue too, where they put a value in the key part, and so we can’t turn it into a preset).

So instead what we’ve decided to do is:  Support a tag `traffic_sign:direction` which works exactly the same as the existing and well supported `traffic_signals:direction`

See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_signals:direction <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_signals:direction>
iD already has support for  `traffic_signals:direction=forward/backward`

To keep things simple, we'll do the same thing for traffic signs:
`traffic_sign:direction=forward/backward`

Thanks,
Bryan

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