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

[Zeke Farwell]

 On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 9:01 PM Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:

> You're on a trip heading towards Heresville, Nebrahoma.  You're coming up
> to a fork in the road, and your nav says "In 300 meters, stay left on
> Nebrahoma State Route 36 (NA 36)."  That added no value to the situation,
> nor can the data consumer filter against that.  Especially since some
> segment of Nebrahoma 36 might end up on 36th Street in Anyton.  Locales in
> the middle inconsistently put variations of Route 36, Highway 36, or
> whatever else on the finger signs instead of using the correct shield with
> double ended arrow sign instead in between, but it's immediately apparent
> that's not the name but the highway number.  Tagging it noname=yes, ref=NA
> 36 solves for literally all of this, isn't ambiguous in any way and
> avoids annoying and distracting duplication.
>

I agree that is not very helpful for a navigation system use case, but this
doesn't seem like a major problem to me.  Navigation systems are also only
one of many use cases for OSM data.  Let's think about a map renderer with
this same fictional place.  This map renderer wants to display name labels
on all roads but since some don't have a name tag it constructs names from ref
values as well.  From the ref value "NA 36" it expands NA into "Nebrahoma",
and 36 into "State Route 36" for a full label of "Nebrahoma State Route
36".  So far so good.   In the nearby state of Vermochussetts, VO 25 is
similarly expanded to "Vermochussetts State Route 25".  This is not so
good.  In Vermochussetts this is the proper term is "Vermochussetts Highway
25" as that is how it is printed on signs and all state DOT publications.
A name tag with the value "Vermochussetts Highway 25" solves this problem
for the map renderer.  Without name tags, the different terms each state
uses for its highways aren't available.


I'd generally consider names on a brown sign to be honorific or secondary
> names outright as that definitely disambiguates the name. ...  But some
> states are like Nebrahoma and renames the primary name of highway itself
>

Vermont is not one of these states.  Grand Army of the Republic Highway is
exactly this kind of honorific, secondary name signed only occasionally on
very small signs (though they are green not brown).  This is why I'm so
adamant that it belongs in official_name, not the main name tag.  It may be
appropriate for an official_name like this to exist on sections where the
only other name is Vermont Route XX.  In these case the correct tagging is
going to either be:

noname=yes + official_name=Grand Memorial Remembrance BlahBlah
*or*
name=Vermont Route XX + official_name=Grand Memorial Remembrance BlahBlah

I think name='Grand Memorial Remembrance BlahBlah'  should always be
considered incorrect when it is an honorific or secondary name like this.
However, in a case where this really is the primary name of the road it
would absolutely be correct.  Obviously it requires strong local knowledge
to know the difference.
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