[Talk-us] Proposed mechanical edits to harmonize county road relation network=* values nationwide

[Clay Smalley]

I have decided to shelve this mechanical edit, as this conversation seems
to have prompted a broader discussion about nationwide and state guidelines
on tagging county roads.

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 7:54 AM Clay Smalley <claysmalley at gmail.com> wrote:

> My fellow Americans,
>
> We have a lot of counties, a lot of county roads, and a lot of county road
> shields. Historically, these tagging schemes developed state-by-state
> without much coordination, so it makes sense that they've diverged. But
> consistency is helpful not only when writing software to support these
> tagging schemes, but also when documenting guidelines to apply to unmapped
> counties. While I was writing wiki documentation on route=road relations in
> a few states, I came across some inconsistencies between states that I
> thought deserved some attention:
>
> 1. Counties' names may have spaces. Currently, this is inconsistently
> reflected in tagging, with some states using spaces (network="US:WI:Fond du
> Lac") and others using underscores (network=US:OK:Roger_Mills).
>
> 2. Counties' names may have abbreviations, usually for "Saint". This is
> also inconsistent in tagging, with some states retaining the abbreviation
> (network="US:FL:CR:St. Lucie") and others expanding it
> (network="US:NY:Saint Lawrence").
>
> As the value of network=* is a standard developed by the OSM community,
> rather than a reflection of text one would see on-the-ground, I believe the
> optimal tagging scheme should prioritize convenience of software support.
> To this end, treating abbreviations and spaces consistently makes a huge
> difference when writing software to support potentially thousands of
> counties.
>
> I would like to propose editing all route=road relations with the
> following values of network=* to change spaces to underscores and expand
> abbreviations:
>
> US:FL:CR:Indian River
> US:FL:CR:Palm Beach
> US:FL:CR:Santa Rosa
> US:FL:CR:St. Johns
> US:FL:CR:St. Lucie
> US:IA:Buena Vista
> US:IA:Des Moines
> US:IA:Van Buren
> US:MN:Big Stone
> US:MN:Blue Earth
> US:MN:Crow Wing
> US:MN:Lac qui parle
> US:MN:Lake of the Woods
> US:MN:Le Sueur
> US:MN:Mille Lacs
> US:MN:Yellow Medicine
> US:NJ:Cape May
> US:NM:CR:Dona Ana
> US:NM:CR:San Juan:CM
> US:NM:CR:San Juan:NCM
> US:NM:CR:Santa Fe
> US:NY:Saint Lawrence
> US:TX:San Patricio
> US:TX:Van Zandt
> US:WI:Eau Claire
> US:WI:Fond du Lac
> US:WI:Green Lake
> US:WI:La Crosse
> US:WI:Saint Croix
>
> Of course, an update in tagging would be followed by an update in
> documentation.
>
> Worth a mention is Ohio, with a very well-structured scheme of network=*
> values. All counties in Ohio are referred to by their ODOT 3-letter code (a
> reasonable exception due to Ohio's unique condition of having township
> routes), and townships are all consistently referred to with underscores
> and expanded abbreviations where applicable. So a signed route belonging to
> St. Clair Township, Columbiana County, OH is tagged with
> network="US:OH:COL:Saint_Clair".
>
> I'd like to hear y'all's thoughts before going through with this edit.
>
> -Clay
>
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