[Tagging] roads with many names

Rob Savoye rob at senecass.com
Sun Aug 18 16:52:45 UTC 2019


On 8/18/19 10:27 AM, Richard Fairhurst wrote:

> name=Corkscrew Gulch Road
> ref=CR 2
> usfs:ref=FS 729.2B

  Interesting, I didn't realize "usfs:ref" is a tag. I have used ref for
camp site numbers, didn't know it supported alphanumerics. I dug around,
and don't see usfs:ref being used, at least not anywhere in Colorado.

  I was wondering if using "alt_name" with ';' was a good idea. I guess
the issue for me is how it appears when searching in OsmAnd, which has
been the major gripe. I guess I can change a few obscure roads, and just
see how OsmAnd handles it.

  Where it gets interesting is for an incident on Corkscrew Gulch Road,
Dispatch often uses the USFS designation, cause the call may come from
the forest service. What name gets used depends on who you work for...
Not your problem, many thanks for the input.

> I think this holds even if the "county-designated name" is CR 2. The "name
> everyone uses" tallies with OSM standard practice; the official reference is
> what we have the ref tag for.

  Plus 'name' is usually what any mapping app will put on the display.
OSM has most all these roads already, they just have no tags beyond
"highway=track".

   Minor note to other mappers, we're big into 'smoothness', 'surface',
'tracktype', as we use those to help determine what type of apparatus to
respond in. I usually have to validate that by driving the road,
although the difference between 'bad' and 'very_bad' is very open to a
difference of opinion... (high clearance only is what I use for
very_bad) But anyway, thank you all for good metadata!

	- rob -



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