[Talk-us] Separate relations for each direction of US & State highways.

Sat Dec 21 05:33:41 UTC 2013

Martijn,

Roads like I 394 west of downtown Minneapolis have several miles of
collector-distributor lanes (separate carriageways running parallel to the
main motorway carriageways) in each direction whose purpose is to handle
slower entering and leaving traffic without creating dangerous "short
weaving sections" between closley spaced intersections  The Highway
Capacity Manual is the world's bible on this subject.  Sorry if I'm
teaching my grandma how to suck eggs, as we say in one country or other
that I sometimes inhabit.  In OSM we show these are motorway_link, like
ramps.  Therefore they do not have route designators (ref tags on the ways).

Roads like the New Jersey Twp approaching NYC and (on a less dramatic
scale) parts of the "Ike" in Chicago (Eisenhower freeway, I 90;I 94) have
entire carriageways or sets of physically separated lanes running parallel
to one another, each of the four carriageways perhaps (last time I was in
NJ) having 3 directional lanes and one or two shoulders.  So there could be
two northbound motorway carriageways and two southbound.  The outer
carriageways are designated "Local" and the inner carriageways (with fewer
exits) are designated "Express". I 5 through downtown Seattle also has
elevated carriageways designed "Express" as I recall.  The surface level
lanes (or in deep cuttings) are "Local."  The Autoroute A6 entering Paris
has the same thing after A6 and A10 merge until A6 (and implicitly A10)
reaches the Boulevard Peripherique.  These parallel roadways are called A6a
and A6b.  In the States, they are termed nearly always "Express" and
"Local" (though I think I've seen other naming too, but I'm not sure
where).  Sorry if you knew all of this already.

I guess the idea would be that the directional roles will be
"north|express" or "north|local", etc.

I hope that this was helpful ...  oops.  :$

Peter

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 10:27 PM, Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:

> James, all,
>
> Work on JOSM is underway, and should be finished by the end of this week.
> I don't think I fully understand what you're trying to convey about
> the local/express lanes, but I think we should ensure that both JOSM
> and iD support cardinal directions with any :extension.
>
> I did make significant edits to the wiki page to capture the
> discussion and move ambiguous parts out of the way, but the
> north;south bit is not mine and I actually don't think it's a great
> idea - can't we just have role=north being concurrent with the OSM way
> direction? Or is that an oversimplification?
>
> Martijn
>
> On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 4:41 AM, James Mast <rickmastfan67 at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Looks good to me Martin.  I'm game with the "role = north:unsigned"
> tagging
> > for unsigned segments.
> >
> > Now all we would need to do is get JOSM to show the cardinal directions
> the
> > same way in the relation editor like "forward/backward" so that you can
> > verify a route is all there and there are no gaps (unless there is one
> for
> > real like I-49 currently has in LA since they are extending it).  And on
> > this subject it brings up an interesting problem.  What to do when a
> highway
> > has C/D lanes that are part of the main highway (like the 401 in Toronto,
> > Ontario, Canada).  I know a few Interstates have these, like I-80 & I-95
> in
> > NJ.  There should be a way to have something like "role = east:express" &
> > "role = east:local" in a directional relation (I fully support
> Interstates
> > to have separate relations for each direction on 2di's; but on 3di's they
> > should stay one relation unless it's like a 30+ mile route like
> I-476/I-376
> > here in PA) and have JOSM's relation editor show a split in the highway
> so
> > you can verify there are no gaps in those areas for the relation.
> >
> > Also, I have noticed you've been doing some editing for the "Highway
> > Directions In The United States" wiki page [1] and mention the "role =
> > north;south" idea for single carriageways so that the routes could tell
> > people which direction the way goes.  I think that might still need a
> little
> > more discussion here on [talk-us] before we attempt to implement it and
> > mention it on that page (maybe have a vote for that part on the talk
> > page??).  I personally think it could work, but we would need all of the
> > editors (JOSM, iD, Potlatch2) to have support to be able to reverse those
> > roles correctly if somebody reverses the way.  Can't allow those to get
> > messed up once added. (On a side note, iD doesn't alert you if you
> delete a
> > way that's part of a relation yet, which isn't good at all.)
> >
> > -James
> >
> >> From: m at rtijn.org
> >> Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:16:54 -0800
> >> To: rickmastfan67 at hotmail.com
> >> CC: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> >
> >> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Separate relations for each direction of US &
> State
> >> highways.
> >>
> >> Hmm yes, on second thought, a second key on role members may not be so
> >> straightforward ;) How silly of me to suggest such a thing.
> >>
> >> Let's keep things pragmatic then and let me suggest we go with
> >> role=north:unsigned for unsigned sections. I don't particularly like
> >> the ; because it suggests a list of things that are of similar nature
> >> (like apple;pear;mango) whereas a colon to me suggests a further
> >> scoping which is what this is.
> >>
> >> So
> >>
> >> role=north / role=west / role=south / role=east
> >>
> >> for relation members to indicate cardinal directions, and
> >>
> >> role=north:unsigned / role=west:unsigned / role=south:unsigned /
> >> role=east:unsigned
> >>
> >> for unsigned segments, unless the entire numbered route is unsigned,
> >> in which case unsigned_ref would do the job.
> >>
> >> Any more insights and comments?
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> Martijn
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 5:31 PM, James Mast <rickmastfan67 at hotmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> > Well, to add a second role to an item in a relation would require an
> >> > entire
> >> > overhaul of relations, the editors, and even the OSM database I would
> >> > think
> >> > to do it. That's why I suggested doing the ";" or "|" because data
> >> > consumers already know how to deal with the ";" at least in the ref
> tags
> >> > on
> >> > normal ways (look @ Mapquest Open and their rendering of highway
> shields
> >> > based off the ref tags on ways). Heck, maybe even a ":" might work
> (role
> >> > =
> >> > north:unsigned).
> >> >
> >> > -James
> >> >
> >> >> From: m at rtijn.org
> >> >> Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2013 23:01:09 -0700
> >> >
> >> >> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Separate relations for each direction of US &
> >> >> State
> >> >> highways.
> >> >> To: rickmastfan67 at hotmail.com
> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 6:17 PM, James Mast <
> rickmastfan67 at hotmail.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> > Martijn,
> >> >> >
> >> >> > How would you suggest using the "role:signed = yes/no" (or is this
> >> >> > just
> >> >> > for
> >> >> > completely unsigned highways like I-124 in TN where we can add this
> >> >> > info
> >> >> > into the main tags of the relation)? We would still need a way to
> >> >> > keep
> >> >> > the
> >> >> > direction for the unsigned segment of the route in the role so that
> >> >> > the
> >> >> > relation editor in JOSM (and other analyzers) would be able to know
> >> >> > that
> >> >> > the
> >> >> > route is still going North/East or South/West, especially on a
> >> >> > dual-carriageway (like what happens with US-52 on I-94 in MN and
> >> >> > US-19
> >> >> > Trunk
> >> >> > on I-279/I-376 here in Pittsburgh, PA) and would let you know it's
> >> >> > still
> >> >> > in
> >> >> > one piece.
> >> >>
> >> >> My idea was to just use
> >> >>
> >> >> role=north/east/south/west
> >> >>
> >> >> for the regularly signposted sections and
> >> >>
> >> >> role=north/east/south/west
> >> >> role:signed=no
> >> >>
> >> >> for the hidden sections.
> >> >>
> >> >> It feels contrived but I also don't see a much better solution in
> >> >> terms of striking a balance between keeping relation complexity in
> >> >> check and information redundancy / ease of maintenance.
> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> > If you don't like the "|" separating the "role = north|unsigned",
> >> >> > maybe
> >> >> > use
> >> >> > the ";" or "," instead? I could see the ";" working just as good as
> >> >> > the
> >> >> > "|".
> >> >>
> >> >> I just want to follow whatever practice is most common for more
> >> >> specific information related to a tag, and thinking of the lanes and
> >> >> access tagging systems I thought the role:signed approach would make
> >> >> the most sense.
> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> > I just want to find a solution to keep the route "all in one piece"
> >> >> > instead
> >> >> > of having to have two separate relations for it's signed segment
> and
> >> >> > one
> >> >> > covering the entire route with the "unsigned_ref" tag. Annoying and
> >> >> > easily
> >> >> > broken by new users who don't know why there are two relations for
> >> >> > the
> >> >> > exact
> >> >> > same route on some segments.
> >> >>
> >> >> I agree 100%.
> >> >> --
> >> >> Martijn van Exel
> >> >> http://openstreetmap.us/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Martijn van Exel
> >> http://oegeo.wordpress.com/
> >> http://openstreetmap.us/
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Talk-us mailing list
> >> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
>
>
>
> --
> Martijn van Exel
> http://oegeo.wordpress.com/
> http://openstreetmap.us/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-us mailing list
> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/attachments/20131220/e8467214/attachment.html>