[Talk-us] Name tag on unnamed, but numbered routes

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 15:31 2021-11-19, Paul Johnson đã viết:
> 
> 
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 4:41 PM Zeke Farwell 
> <ezekielf at gmail.com 
> <mailto:ezekielf at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     I'm sure loc_name="The 5" probably would be appropriate on route
>     relation as that is what the locals call it 😉.  But that's beside
>     the point.  Vermont Route 15 (and many other Vermont state highways)
>     is literally signed with that name on street name signs.  It's the
>     real name, not just a colloquialism.
> 
>     Screen Shot 2021-11-19 at 5.30.39 PM.png
> 
> 
> This looks like noname=yes, ref=VT 15.

Indeed, database design principles would probably have us avoid 
hard-coding parallel data that can be derived from something more basic, 
which in this case would mean storing just ref and deriving a systematic 
name from it. That's workable as long as there's a lookup table like the 
Wikidata Query Service query from [1], or the lookup table that Valhalla 
sends to the text-to-speech engine. [2] There are probably eight other 
lookup tables along those lines, each with their own quirks, and none of 
them with anywhere near comprehensive coverage.

Meanwhile, most data consumers just use the ref as is, even if the use 
case calls for something more verbose like "Vermont Route 15". In 
practice, I don't think we have to worry about VTrans changing its state 
road name format overnight, and the size taken up by the additional name 
tags would be rounding error in any offline download of OSM data. 
(Repeated strings compress very well!)

All told, I find very little reason to care a whole lot one way or 
another about tagging these names explicitly: both approaches have their 
pros and cons, but the cons aren't horrible.

Regardless, I think there's a strong case for explicitly tagging names 
that don't follow the usual formula, rather than expecting data 
consumers to special-case individual routes or roads. It's been a while 
since I traveled through Oklahoma, but I remember there used to be 
street name signs all along U.S. 69/75 that read "State Road 69". That's 
information that would be lost by deleting the name tag in favor of ref. 
Just map the signs, right? :_(

[1] 
<https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2021-November/021417.html>
[2] 
<https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/blob/3957ff528091dce5177e1d86a2072659124116db/valhalla/baldr/verbal_text_formatter_us.h#L39-L92>

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us