[Talk-us] Use of ref-tag on state highways

[Josh Doe]

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Val Kartchner <val42k at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-08-20 at 07:52 -0400, Peter Dobratz wrote:
>> On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 6:04 AM, Henk Hoff <toffehoff at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > To my understanding our tagging-standard for State Highways is [STATE]
>> > [NUMBER]
>> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_roads_tagging#State_Highways
>>
>> I agree that we should use the standard 2-letter state abbreviation
>> and then the number: "AK 7"
>
> Because of the international nature of this project, we need to include
> the country as well.

Whatever we do, can we please have a vote on it? I know votes aren't
binding, but it's better than having this discussion over and over
again.

I'd say the first order of business is to create a listing of what
each state uses, whether it be "SR 123" or "VA 123". I tend to think
it's not a good idea to put just the number in the ref tag for ways,
e.g. "123", as there is ambiguity unless you rely on other tags, but
"US:VA 123" is too verbose, and belongs more in the route relation as
part of the network. I'd vote for either "SR 123" or "VA 123", as
neither are "incorrect", but gives a decent rendering on maps and
narrative directions. If we standardize on one or the other, data
consumers can fairly easily transform back and forth.

-Josh