[Talk-us] Relation roles

[Adam Schreiber]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:54 PM, Phil! Gold <phil_g at pobox.com> wrote:
> * Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> [2011-06-29 14:52 -0700]:
>> On 06/29/2011 11:49 AM, Nathan Mills wrote:
>> > My personal preference is to use directional roles so that they match
>> > what is written on signage. It also avoids the inevitable "which way is
>> > forward and which is backward" question.
>>
>> One should hope the software can figure that out based on the overall
>> orientation of the relation.
>
> I would prefer directional roles, because you can't always determine the
> signed directions programmatically.  I've seen quite a few roads which
> could be either north/south or east/west depending on how and where you
> look at them.  I've also seen roads that predominantly go in a particular
> direction but which are signed the other way by the entity maintaining
> them.
>
> The tagging should match what the signs on the ground say.

I agree.  Not only can't the directionals always be easily determined,
unless one follows the odd/even convention (loop roads I495, I476.
etc. wouldn't be deterministic), foward/backward are redundant with
the oneway=yes tag and the way's direction.

Cheers,

Adam