[talk-ph] Fwd: [Talk-ca] Route reference tagging: time for change?

[Jherome Miguel]

Sorry, should have pressed “Reply All”. Forwarding to list.

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From: Jherome Miguel <jheromemiguel at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 4, 2021 at 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Route reference tagging: time for change?
To: Andrew Deng <andrewdeng93 at yahoo.ca>


We’ll, I don’t know well why our neighbours south of the border add state
abbreviations to state highway/road numbers, but I think this is an
evolution from using ref= values based on those used by state departments
of transportation for inventory purposes as well as signs. I can remember
seeing ref= with SR (State Route) and SH (State Highway) around 2015 to
2016 before the OSM US community moved towards using values prefixed with
state postal abbreviations since SR and SH are too common across many
states, though there are notable exceptions to the guideline like M-XXX for
Michigan state highways (Kansas state highways uses similar values as well,
being K-XXX, as found on their signs with a yellow sunflower outline, but
they seem to have been mostly replaced by KS XXX) as well as various
subtypes of state highways in Texas (Loop Roads, Beltway 8, Spur Roads,
NASA Road 1, Farm to Market Roads, Recreational Roads and Ranch to Market
Roads. Texas state highways usually use TX XXX). On US Routes, US is mostly
not found in signs for most of the states except California, but I would
assume it’s used nationwidr for consistency across states as well as for
disambiguation. On the Interstates, it’s obvious why there’s the “I”before
the number: it’s a shorthand for Interstate which can be seen on signs
though it’s small print when viewed from a distance.

Back on the main topic, considering many argue against adding province or
territory postal abbreviations, I think we can keep on using bare numbers
for provincial/territorial highways, but add RR/CR/MR for Ontario municipal
roads for disambiguation. I agree, as Andrew has said, there’s some former
provincial highways that are now officially “ABC County/Regional/Municipal
Road XXX” but still called “[King’s] Highway X”. This change would also
benefit some municipal roads that are tagged primary, usually those that
are recently “downloaded” from provincial maintenance, since some renderers
still show them as using provincial highway shields even they’re long gone
from MTO’s maintenance and the signs changed (and some are renumbered such
as former Highway 7 through Peel, which is now RR 107, the 10 being added
to distinguish it from RR 7 that existed when Highway 7 is still under MTO
maintenance).

Again, on Manitoba ref= tagging, anyone in favour for or against getting
rid of PTH and PR?
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