[Talk-GB] Made-up motorway junction names

[Mark Goodge]

On 03/01/2023 12:59, Andy Mabbett wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Jan 2023 at 21:27, yasslay <yasslayosm at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> As Andy mentioned previously, the user in question has also assigned other dubious or fictitious names to roads across the UK. For example, the A40 near Gloucester was named the 'Golden Valley Bypass' (see https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/124020874#map=14/51.8852/-2.1667) by Falsernet which is clearly fictitious, and was recently reverted by Andy.
> 
> But is it "clearly fictitious"?
> 
>     https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/d4f09db3-e43c-483e-a452-dec44910614e

Indeed. See also:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/398/contents/made

It's also in common use by the local media, for example:

https://stroudtimes.com/fatal-collision-on-a40-golden-valley-bypass/

https://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/23007275.fatal-crash-a40-golden-valley-bypass/

So, in this case, rather than being clearly fictitious, it's actually 
clearly not fictitious.

Part of the issue with data from SABRE is that users of the site 
disproportionately include people with inside knowledge of the road 
network - that is, those involved in designing, building and maintaining 
roads. And a lot of the names they give to locations are those which 
are, genuinely, but unofficially, used by the people who work on the 
roads even those are not officially documented anywhere.

In many cases, these are the "working titles" of roads or junctions 
under construction, before they've been formally allocated numbers 
and/or names by the relevant authorities, but have lingered on in 
colloquial usage among road workers even after there is an official 
number and name. "Golden Valley Bypass" is a case in point - it was the 
Golden Valley Bypass before it was the A40, because the A40 didn't get 
remapped onto the by-pass until after it was built.

As far as these various unofficial names of roads and interchanges are 
concerned, I'd suggest that the best test is a simple Google (or 
DuckDuckGo, or Bing, or search engine of your choice). If the name is 
being used outside the specialist road fan community - for example, in 
the local media, as above - then it's got real world usage and can be 
included in the OSM data. But if the only people who appear to be 
calling it that are road nerds, then it probably shouldn't be included.

Mark