[Talk-us] National Forest trail numbering

Samat K Jain lists at samat.org
Sun Aug 15 20:03:13 BST 2010


I'm want to do an import of the trail system in various National Forests in New Mexico, starting with the Lincoln National Forest. One thing in the Forest Service shapefiles I want to make part of the import is trail numbering.

However, I haven't found much information on how this is done for National Forests in the USA. The wiki page (see below) mentions route_no= and trail_no=, but there's no other mention of these in the wiki, nor am I able to find them actually used in the USA.

Going through the list of forests for which trails are imported:

  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/US_Forest_Service_Data

I found the Access Trial in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest National Forest (northern Georgia):

  http://osm.org/go/ZSFjcox1--

it's tagged with:

 * attribution: USFS
 * bicycle: no
 * foot: yes
 * highway: path
 * horse: no
 * motorcar: yes
 * motorcycle: yes
 * name: Access Trail
 * ref: FS Trail 93A
 * source: USFS_import_v0.2_20090219110826
 * USFS:systemname: Beasley Knob
 * USFS:way_id: 34

I've not seen trail numbering done outside of Georgia. One thing I'm worried about is whether forest trail numbering is unique (i.e. 93A). For example, a trail in Lincoln National Forest (several thousand miles away from Georgia) is numbered "44".

Do others have thoughts on this?

My plans for tagging are:

 * name: "Trail N" for numbered trails without common names. My shapefiles don't have common names, i.e. Access Trail or Crest Trail, so I'll have to copy these from other FS maps.
 * ref: "N". This is different than the Georgia import… a decision I'm making in the interest of elegance/simplicity. If trail numbers are not unique, then there's no point having "FS Trail" there.

-- 
Samat K Jain <http://samat.org/> | GPG: 0x4A456FBA

Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a decent sniper rifle.
-- None (10)
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