[Talk-us] Removing US Bicycle Route tags

Greg Troxel gdt at ir.bbn.com
Wed Jun 5 23:02:28 UTC 2013


Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> writes:

> An argument *against* having proposed routes is the verifiability - we
> usually try to have data where someone on the ground could easily
> check the correctness by looking at signs. Since proposed routes are
> unlikely to be signposted, having them in OSM is questionable.

I see verifiability as having a broader sense.  In the case of
officially proposed USBR routes, someone who is local can look up the
government documents, meeting minutes, or whatever and determine if the
route numbering authority has in fact put the route into proposed
status.  That's essentially what Kerry is talking about.  That's beyond
looking at signs, but some things on the map aren't obvious from
standing near them - official names are a complicated mix of signs on
the ground, meeting minutes from naming authorities, 911 or tax
databases, etc.  To me, the point is that one can determine an answer by
observing evidence, and reasonable people can discuss the total evidence
and come to rough consensus.

> On the other hand, I take exception at the original poster's apparent
> insistence on "routes approved by AASHTO". Whether or not a certain
> route has been approved by a certain third organisation is not usually
> something that OSM would care about. The usual OSM approach would be

I don't see that at all. For a US highway, there is some part of the
federal bureaucracy that assigns highway numbers.  A road is a US
highway if it's officially been designated, and the signs are expected
to keep up with that offiical designation.  If there's a case where a
road has been designated as a US highway, and the locals know it, but
there are no signs (Because they've been stolen, or because there was no
budget to put them up, or the sign people are on strike, or they've all
been knocked down in winter car accidents, or whatever), then it's still
proper to tag it as a US highway.

> that if a route is signposted, then it can be mapped - if not, then
> not.

I do agree that tagging a highway because one wishes that it were
otherwise is bogus.  But as long as a local mapper is determing a form
of reality by relatively objective means, I don't see a problem.

> An AASHTO approved route that is not signposted would not normally be
> mapped;

I think there may be a bit of terminology confusion: Kerry seems to mean
"approved" as "approved by the numbering authority as a proposed route
which has not yet been constructed/signed".  That's similar to "the
government has decided to extend I-101 on these 10 miles, but hasn't
built it yet".  So either it's ok to show it, or we should remove all
highway=proposed.  But I think it's useful to have highway=proposed, so
that those who want can render it.  highway=proposed is still subject to
crowdsourcing editing and quality control, and should mean that the
cognizant naming authority has published a specific plan.

I think this is the crux of Kerry's point - proposed cycle routes only
make sense if the authority that controls the relevant ref namespace has
actually proposed them.  So even from your verfiability concern
viewpoint, I think if people did as Kerry asked, there would be far
fewer proposed routes in the db, and all of them would be widely
recognized as legitimately and actually proposed.

> and a signposted route that is not approved by AASHTO has
> every right to be mapped.

This is similar to what would happen if someone put up "US 99" signs on
their little side street, just because they were in the mood and had
signs and a hammer and nails.  That doesn't make it US 99 -- it's just
simple vandalism -- , if other evidence says it's not true.  This is
really the same situation.

Now if the guerilla route is not in an official namespace, and the signs
persist, then I have no issue with it being mapped.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 194 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/attachments/20130605/07641c49/attachment.pgp>


More information about the Talk-us mailing list