[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - value 'basic_network' - cycle_network?

[stevea]

On Dec 21, 2021, at 1:48 PM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2021 at 3:20 PM steveaOSM <steveaOSM at softworkers.org> wrote:
> Mmmm, that's a bit of a trick question, as what you ask about here is a STATE-level (not local) bike route sign (known as "M1-8").
> 
> MUTCD has no sign for state level bike routes.  The M1-8 and M1-8a are local route signs.

OK, thanks, Paul, I just learned something.  Although I here and now ask you to cite a source for this, as it seems somewhat "interpretive" of the MUTCD.  (That's the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the  USA's "sign guide").

However, I think OSM "stretching the definition / distinction" of M1-8 (used much more often by state governments on state-level bicycle routes) and M1-8a (used much more often by local governments on local-level bicycle routes) hits pretty darn close to the mark.  The whole lcn/rcn/ncn/icn categorizations are known to be both loose and "stretchable" for any given country/region and indeed this appears to be the reasoning for the invention of cycle_network=* (by, surprisingly, the notorious and banned-long-ago NE2!) in the first place: so that precisely the notion of "WHICH network?" could be answered by a properly-selected value of cycle_network=*, which largely fits into a hierarchy (and roughly if not exactly though not always correspond to levels of local/regional/national/international).

Indeed, Ohio appears to "smear" the distinctions between using M1-8 and M1-8a, but Ohio has relatively complex bicycle networks.  What they do and how they do it (denote state vs. local via their choice of signage) can likely be explained by someone at ODOT, even if I can't do so in our wiki, though I believe Minh started to with his hints / indications.

As the USA truly DOES have "state level bike routes" (Delaware, New York, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, Massachusetts, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania...) and many/most/perhaps all of these routes are signed with the M1-8 sign, even if not de jure (if MUTCD is de jure) it certainly is de facto that M1-8 "represents" such "state level bike routes."  Not perfectly (Ohio), but "good enough" while allowing some stretchiness of the definitions.  Really, we're doing the best we can while remaining true to both intentions (of the creators and erectors of the signs) and understandability (by the public and mappers who must choose appropriate tags) in OSM.  The cycle_network=* tag, when used and with carefully-crafted-by-consensus values for a given region, goes a long way towards such understand-ability.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/attachments/20211221/240ec532/attachment.htm>