On 24 April 2012 11:23, Steve Bennett <[email protected]> wrote: > (Btw, the "map what's on the ground" mantra is really inaccurate - we > map tons of stuff which is not "on the ground" in any literal or even > metaphorical sense. It's not a good rule of thumb.)
I disagree. The "map what's on the ground" is a good mantra. It solves 90% plus of contentious mapping issues, by making a decision to map what is there. It also guides us towards verifiability - which is a key tenet of any shared piece of work. If you can't verify it, then ultimately we can't map it cooperatively. Cycle routes are tricky, and we haven't got there yet. Ask three different road routing algorithms the for a best route, and expect similar answers. With cycle routes, that won't be the case, and many different factors need to go into the weighting, and isolating the routing factors and their weighting is developing. And in my opinion the solution to this is to cling to "Map What Is On The Ground". If there is a cycle facility there, shoulder space, shared lane, reduced speed limit, paved cut-thru - these are all things that will help me get from A to B safely. Unfortunately, just being on a RMS or council approved cycle route won't. Often roads that are the most suited for cycling aren't on an "official" cycle route, just because they don't connect two destinations. Other linking sections are included on cycle routes even though they are dangerous for cyclists. In this case, there is a user identified safe route connecting two cycleways, that is different to the council proposed route, and the proposed council route has no useful facilities. I'd be using the Map What Is On The Ground mantra here. I wouldn't map the possibly proposed council route with no facilities. What is the point of that? I'd be mapping the facilities that make the safe route a good cycle route. I'd then be testing out different cycle routers to ensure that in their "safe route mode", they recommend the best route. If they don't, I'd be investigating why, and seeing whether the problem lies with the tagging, the routing engine, of the route itself, and making the appropriate suggestions for changes. Many times I've done this, and actually found a better route than the one I was using before. OSM is like that. Ian. _______________________________________________ Talk-au mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
