[OSM-talk] Administrative boundaries along roads

Lester Caine lester at lsces.co.uk
Mon Mar 22 07:32:17 GMT 2010


John Smith wrote:
> On 22 March 2010 12:24, Mike N.<niceman at att.net>  wrote:
>> In your point b), do you mean that if we did use boundary relations that
>> there would not be an issue with boundaries and roads being co-mingled and
>> mis-edited?
>
> The problem with this is when boundaries or roads move independent of
> each other, such as for road-realignment, the whole thing becomes a
> bigger mess.

I have still to be convinced that trying to merge abstract data with real mapped 
objects is always a good idea. I take the point that 'road realignment' may 
require the boundary also to move, but the word is MAY and so what ever happens 
to the road, the location of the boundary needs to be checked separately! It is 
quite surprising in the UK how many roads are being moved, but that does not 
also move the original boundary.

What should also be considered is that this does assume that the road is 
condensed to a single way. I'm sure many US boundaries also follow freeways, 
where the boundary is more likely to be the central reservation and either 
carriageway. So one ends up with an even bigger mess when trying to move things?

As far as I am concerned, the 'MUST merge ways' camp are simply wrong, and 
forcing everything to be merged is a major backwards step. We NEED as a mater of 
urgency an agreed method of MANAGING groups of ways that at a low zoom level 
define a single linear object, but at higher zoom levels show that the 
'boundaries', carriage ways and structure are physically distinct. When a 
structure like this gets moved, then all of the fine detail moves as well - but 
with the option to 'unsnap' a boundary or other sub element if necessary.

There has to be a very good reason for REMOVING any data, and the assertion that 
we can in general 'remove multiple ways' is only acceptable if the project is 
also going to adopt the rule 'we will never map detail'? Perhaps it is time for 
a split in the project, and those of us who need to maintain details such as 
road structures and property boundaries set up our own fork with tools that 
allow things that the simplify everything camp don't thing we should have?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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