[OSM-talk] Road Widths, Stubs and Priority/Giveway.

[Ben Robbins]

I've Been a way for a few weeks, so a slightly late Happy New Year, and hope 
you all had a Happy Christmas.  I have a few conserns that I would like to 
breifly discuss, but only breifly, preferably with no side tracking.

I spent last night checking threw osm, and I noticed a few things.  The 
Osmarenders seem to cover the vaste majority of the UK, and loads of other 
places and it looks really good, so well done and thanks, it looks 
fantasitc.

There is many many pages of suggestions that the voting period's have 
expired on.  I havn't shifted any to the features page, cause I havn't 
followed the mailing list, so there may have been additonal discussions on 
them?  I've also noticed that some people stick proposals and voting appears 
extreamly fast, regardless of discussion or queue's; thats a bit lame.

I also noticed SteveC has uploaded 1,000,000 trackpoints, nice one.  Is this 
a call for one of those star things? (discussed back in August)

Anyway, my 3 Concerns/questions.

1)

Road widths:  This has been discussed beforeish, Im not really fussed how 
its tagged, but any suggestion would be appreiciated, otherwise I shall tag 
them as highwaytype=type1/2/3/4.*.   This is a way of splitting up the 
varing width variations of the small roads that are otherwise tagged the 
same (unclassified).

*Additional to highway=unclassified, (and streetlight=yes, catseyes=yes if 
nessesery)

1=Road with Room for Normal viecles going in each direction to drive past 
each other normally
2=Roads where cars can pass but will usually slow down, and/or move to one 
side of the road.  Usually they lack road markings in the UK
3=Roads where 1 of the cars would need to drive up onto to grass/sand/mud on 
the side of the road
4=Roads where the road edge stops easy passing and 1 of the 2 cars would 
have to reverse to a passing spot.  Walls/enbanked edges/ditches/sinking 
sand etcetc along the edge.

2)

Stubs**:  I've seen proposals for similar things, and this must have been 
discussed before, just becuase it seems such an obvious flaw.   When there 
is a road or anything that is known to be there, but is unmapped it would be 
very helpful to stick a symbol there saying that the road end on the map is 
not the road end in reality.  I'm not suggesting it should render on the 
main map renders, but either show up in an editor, or be rendered on a notes 
render that can be referencesd by people travelling somewhere and wishing to 
map.  Stubs could varie for what they mark.  footpath stubs/road stubs 
etcetc.  Any ideas?

** = http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g226/ben_robbins_/OSMdeadends.jpg  << 
  I made this ages ago, but it illustrates my point.  The signs propably 
arn't approprieate, but I used them just because in the UK its 'No Entry' 
and it would be used to mark where there has been 'No Entry' with a gps onto 
a road.  But any symbol would do really, but something needs to be around, 
currently the only way of planning routes on virgin roads is to play 'spot 
the difference' with osm and os maps...ooo criminal.  Or, just print an osm 
map and play spot the difference with reality as you drive, wich is kinda 
sketchy, and I'm not keen on.

3)

If there is a cross road, then usually (not in towns) 1 of the roads would 
continue, while the other would giveway to it.  I'm currently concerned that 
a map using osm data would keep saying to go straight on when its 
unnesesery.   If the way goes straight threw the junction then that would be 
ok, but usually If a road is 100 miles long (for example), then it wouldnt 
just be 1 way, for editing convenience, and for lack of confusion with a 
great varaty of tags not applying to the whole way.
My solution would be to be able to layble statuslayers for a road.  So if 
there is a cross road and 2 roads are '2', and 2 are '1', then it is clear 
that the 2's give way to the 1's.  Alternatively, if there is a  '1', '1', 
'1', '1', then its clear that all give way to each other.  The same for '1', 
'2', '3', '4'.  I'm shore theres better solutions...would anyone care to 
explain/think of one?.

I'm just gunna ignore replies that talk of 'ukcentric opions' and/or 'how 
because 1 person has no interest in a tag means that knowone should'.  I'll 
be apprieative of some help on those 3 questions though.

Thanks,

Ben

p.s.  With spring not too far away in the Northern Hemisphere, would 
usergroup meetups be a good idea? preferably with the intention of sorting 
some mapping things for around easter and beyond...

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