Paul Johnson writes:
Not likely but not entirely out of the possibility given some regional (above county, below state) names, which would be an issue if we were to bring bike networks into the hierarchical scheme (which seems like a good idea since the US has some rather complex hierarchy of bike networks that don't always fit the Sustrans schema cleanly, like greater Tulsa's INCOG network or greater Portland's Metro Region network, that don't get distinguished from the more minor county and city networks).
The four levels of bike routes (continental/international, national, regional/state and local) that OSM supports in its current tagging scheme truly fit a European/UK/Sustrans model better than what we have in this realm in the USA. In addition to the "odd ducks" that Paul notes, there are a number of what I am naming with Kerry Irons of ACA "quasi-national" and "private-national" routes, like the Mississipi River Trail (MRT) and the East Coast Greenway (ECG). Both MRT and ECG are not sponsored by governments, but rather "private" (or quasi-private, sometimes charitable, sometimes for-profit) organizations. And so, where do these "fit in" to the bicycle networking schema used in OSM? Currently, these two (there are dozens more, hundreds if we include more state/regional sized routes) are considered to be so "national in scope" that they share bicycle network "address space" along with AASHTO's United States Bicycle Route (USBR) numbering.
So, for example on a rendering like http://cycling.waymarkedtrails.org/en/?zoom=5&lat=39.3&lon=-92&hill=0&route=1#
we see routes 1, 20, 35, and 76, but we also see MRT and ECG. In the case of MRT, there is even a segment which has been designated by AASHTO as USBR 45, yet folks in Minnesota are "proud of their (MRT) brand" (says Kerry) that we found a way in OSM renderings to respect both (dual naming, super-relation inclusion...). This is similar to how the Lincoln Highway or National Road are still historical designators or enthusiast names which are still respected, but state/national highway numbering have largely "superceded" (though not completely) these historical names. The situation is similar with USBR 45 and MRT in Minnesota, and once again, as long as consensus is reached as to the semantics, with careful tagging, OSM's tagging syntax is able to accommodate.
So, what I am saying is that while icn/ncn/rcn/lcn is a bit restrictive as a cycleway networking numbering scheme, being derived from "government only" UK/European/Sustrans models, OSM is able to fit into it the multitude of mixed government and private routing found in the USA. It isn't always easy, and discussion can be tedious and lengthy, but I believe it can be done.
SteveA California _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
