[Talk-us] Future Interstate Relations

[stevea]

Paul Johnson writes:

>Not likely but not entirely out of the possibility given some 
>regional (above county, below state) names, which would be an issue 
>if we were to bring bike networks into the hierarchical scheme 
>(which seems like a good idea since the US has some rather complex 
>hierarchy of bike networks that don't always fit the Sustrans schema 
>cleanly, like greater Tulsa's INCOG network or greater Portland's 
>Metro Region network, that don't get distinguished from the more 
>minor county and city networks).

The four levels of bike routes (continental/international, national, 
regional/state and local) that OSM supports in its current tagging 
scheme truly fit a European/UK/Sustrans model better than what we 
have in this realm in the USA.  In addition to the "odd ducks" that 
Paul notes, there are a number of what I am naming with Kerry Irons 
of ACA "quasi-national" and "private-national" routes, like the 
Mississipi River Trail (MRT) and the East Coast Greenway (ECG).  Both 
MRT and ECG are not sponsored by governments, but rather "private" 
(or quasi-private, sometimes charitable, sometimes for-profit) 
organizations.  And so, where do these "fit in" to the bicycle 
networking schema used in OSM?  Currently, these two (there are 
dozens more, hundreds if we include more state/regional sized routes) 
are considered to be so "national in scope" that they share bicycle 
network "address space" along with AASHTO's United States Bicycle 
Route (USBR) numbering.

So, for example on a rendering like 
http://cycling.waymarkedtrails.org/en/?zoom=5&lat=39.3&lon=-92&hill=0&route=1#

we see routes 1, 20, 35, and 76, but we also see MRT and ECG.  In the 
case of MRT, there is even a segment which has been designated by 
AASHTO as USBR 45, yet folks in Minnesota are "proud of their (MRT) 
brand" (says Kerry) that we found a way in OSM renderings to respect 
both (dual naming, super-relation inclusion...).  This is similar to 
how the Lincoln Highway or National Road are still historical 
designators or enthusiast names which are still respected, but 
state/national highway numbering have largely "superceded" (though 
not completely) these historical names.  The situation is similar 
with USBR 45 and MRT in Minnesota, and once again, as long as 
consensus is reached as to the semantics, with careful tagging, OSM's 
tagging syntax is able to accommodate.

So, what I am saying is that while icn/ncn/rcn/lcn is a bit 
restrictive as a cycleway networking numbering scheme, being derived 
from "government only" UK/European/Sustrans models, OSM is able to 
fit into it the multitude of mixed government and private routing 
found in the USA.  It isn't always easy, and discussion can be 
tedious and lengthy, but I believe it can be done.

SteveA
California