[OSM-talk] relations in order not to fragment roads (was: correctly mapping avenues)

[Martin Trautmann]

Karl Newman wrote:
> To me, the nodes and ways
> should follow the physical world as much as possible--the road didn't change
> just because the speed limit changed, so why chop it up?

I changed the subject now - and I agree, roads should be kept as roads. 
The more details you add, the more fragments you would get. When a 
proprety of the road at its full length does change, you have to adjust 
every single piece.

There are occasions where a certain split has to be done. Take e.g. a 
national route which passes several cities. It could be called e.g. "B3" 
(which would be the German Bundesstraße 3) which is several hundred 
kilometers long and passes through dozens of towns and villages. 
Whenever the town boarder is reached, the B3 may follow a line of 
residential roads. I feel that a split is required here - the full 
length of the road can be found by the ref tag.

BTW: I learned recently that those national roads no longer have 
kilometer markings for the full length. When this road is changed e.g. 
to a bypass, the kilometers would have to be repositioned. Thus nowadays 
those roads are split to segments and (kilo)meters are measured relative 
to the border of the segment:

<http://www.stmi.bayern.de/imperia/md/content/stmi/bauen/strassen-undbrueckenbau/veroeffentlichungen/stationszeichen_faltblatt.pdf>