[Tagging] Clarification on the role link in route relations

[stevea]

On Jan 11, 2022, at 1:38 AM, Peter Elderson <pelderson at gmail.com> wrote:
> stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com>:
> I remain a bit unsure of why specific distinctions between recreational and non-recreational bike routes are strictly necessary...
> 
> Not necessary. It's about fixed routes, signposted as such. Recreation is the main purpose, but increasingly there are other purposes, e.g. preferred cycle routes for commuters. Since Nederland is bound to be Nedersea in the not-so-far future, I expect routes for boat commuters to emerge. (Joking? Not sure...)
> 
> In Germany, some mappers want to adapt route relation mapping according to purpose, for rendering and for routing/navigation.  In Belgium and Nederland such routes are popping up too, in and around cities. An extra tag on the relation can handle that; different roles for members do not seem necessary. 

I've been trying to keep my eyes wide open especially since the "basic_network" discussion (sorry if that is a sore topic for anyone) and with reading your explanations and the wiki page you and Minh have contributed to, I am actually starting to "see."  Thank you for your patience.

The USA doesn't (to the best of my knowledge) have these sorts of signs or routing.  In the Eastern USA we do have methods of blazes, color symbols and similar things I haven't seen in California / West Coast, but not the sorts of signs Richard notes, (no need to go out in the weather, Richard, I can see that "indicator" in GSV just fine) nor the sorts of conventions emerging or extant in BeNeLux countries and Germany / Italy that are quite different than here.

I think as long as OSM remains internationally-minded and open to accommodating the real world with good relational database conventions, we'll be fine (and we seem to be).  It does seem to be true that "we don't do it like that in my country" can give rise to some stickiness, but we can solve those.  Especially as we document and clearly communicate them.