[Tagging] road names and refs

Jmapb jmapb at gmx.com
Fri Jan 31 16:56:10 UTC 2020


On 1/30/2020 6:22 PM, Kevin Kenny wrote:
> Uhm.  It looks pretty much like any other `highway=unclassified`. The
> signs say 'Old Route 7' in the style the township uses for rural
> roads. There are no shields or chaining markers to indicate that it's
> a state highway. And it's been called, 'Old Route 7' for decades. This
> isn't a case of the state adding 'OLD' in place of a directional
> marker, this is just that the town never saw fit to name the remaining
> road anything else, and put up signs showing the name as it is.  (And
> I've given the wrong number, but I'm far too lazy to look up the
> correct one.)

I've mapped some bits of Old Route 28 in New York. In most places the
current NY 28 is on the same roadbed as the old highway, but here and
there small segments of the former road remain. They're mostly tagged
"name=Old Route 28" from TIGER (I see one "name=Old St Hwy 28").

Some bits are close enough to the new route 28 that they serve as little
access roads. They don't have their own street signs, and addresses
along them will be 12345 Route 28 (or 12345 State Route 28, or 12345
State Highway 28, or 12345 NY 28... poorly standardized.) There might be
a case for removing the name= from these, maybe even tagging them as
highway=service. ( eg https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/20215809 ).

Other sections are further removed and have their own road signs (long
green street signs, not highway shields) that say "OLD ROUTE 28". House
and business addresses use Old Route 28 as the street name. These ways
should definitely keep the tag "name=Old Route 28".

In neither case would I say that adding an old_ref or old_name tag is
wrong per se, but I doubt that it would ever be particularly helpful.

But there are some situations where I'd say old_ref is a good idea, see
these signs from the transition from US-666 to US-491:
https://i.imgur.com/znnYnpt.jpg

J




More information about the Tagging mailing list