[Talk-us] Mass Pike naming convention

[Greg Troxel]

"Brian M. Sperlongano" <zelonewolf at gmail.com> writes:

> For those suggesting that "Mass Pike" is an abbreviation equivalent to "St"
> or "Ave" or "Rd", it isn't -- "Mass Pike" is a clearly deliberate choice in
> branding and signage by MassDOT to create and promote a consumer-friendly
> name for regular use by the public.  The only time I have ever seen
> "Massachusetts Turnpike" or some partial variant such as "Mass Turnpike" is
> in official contexts such as on MassDOT's web site.  Hence my suggestion
> that perhaps the fully-spelled out version was an anachronism rather than
> the simple expansion of an abbreviation.  Compare this to the Pennsylvania
> Turnpike, which can be found fully spelled out [4] on signage, along with
> various examples with abbreviated variants of Pennsylvania (including the
> unfortunate PENNA).

The data layer published by MassDOT* (which includes all roads) has
"MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE" in the "street name" field.  So it's not an
anachronism - it is the name of record.

* A shortened name itself, which does not change the actual name of the
  agency :-) At least we don't have a "and Providence Plantations" to
  drop!

I agree that this situation is more complicated than regular
abbreviations.  I see this as a pervasive abbreviation, not a name
change.

> Regardless of which variant goes where, I do agree that the addition of
> "Mass Pike" to one of the _name tag variants is the bare minimum change
> that needs to be made to at least reflect this usage.

My read of group consensus is that we have

  - 4 in favor of using the official name
  - 1 in favor of using the shortened version
  - wiki and precedent is very strong in "don't abbreviate" (and I
    realize you are saying it isn't an abbreviation)

so that clearly lands at "don't change name=".

My sense is that everyone is ok with adding

  alt_name="Mass Pike"

and I am 100% ok myself with you doing so whenever you want.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 194 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/attachments/20220704/fdb52a88/attachment.sig>