Bike route networks classification (ICN, NCN, RCN and LCN)

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

To add to this, some organizations like the American Cycling Association go to great lengths to publish quality bike tours (or “shared rides”) as guidebooks, available either to members or for a fee. Some of these tours are in a slow process of evolving into more formal designated routes, just as the TransAmerica Trail became U.S. Bicycle Route 1 76 in the 1970s, with the tour serving as a “corridor” for officials to consider. This causes us some difficulty, because we have mapped some tours but tagged them as essentially the same thing as designated routes. Now we find a need to somehow distinguish between the two.

Vestigial "Pacific Coast Bicycle Route"

I’m being careful here to thread many needles simultaneously, as the plot is historical, thick and somewhat complex. California, through its Department of Transportation Caltrans, has recently applied to AASHTO to essentially complete (Phase II after Phase I already approved from Oregon to Daly City, south of San Francisco) United States Bicycle Route 95, extending from Daly City / Pacifica to its border with México (at Imperial Beach). There is at least one long-existent-in-OSM “Pacific Coast…

[stevea]

@Minh_Nguyen

just as the TransAmerica Trail became U.S. Bicycle Route 1 in the 1970s

Mmm, it was (largely speaking), ACA’s “Atlantic Coast” route that became USBR 1 in the late 1970s…and then, only initially in the states of Virginia and North Carolina. It took until 2012 before more states were added, and South Carolina (and other states along “Atlantic Coast”) are still holdouts (for their own reasons), creating gaps in USBR 1 as a whole.

It is true that ACA’s Transamerica Trail (in the late 1970s again in Virginia) became USBR 76 (not 1). And USBR 76 has rather nicely progressed westward across the USA, most recently being designated in the (Western) state of Wyoming. By way of demonstrating how closely related are these processes, several years ago the state of Kansas’ Department of Transportation rather “wholesale adopted” the entirety of the routing segments of ACA’s Transamerica Trail for its designation of its statewide component of USBR 76.

USBRs 1 and 76 in Virginia and North Carolina were (in the 1970s) the two initial “seeds” of the USBRS. Half a century later, the System has grown to 63 routes and 23186.7 miles (37316.6 km) not including ferries, in 35 states. And OSM has a decade-plus-long process of entering these into OSM which has proven to be 100% effective.

[stevea]

@Minh_Nguyen

Some of these tours are in a slow process of evolving into more formal designated routes, just as the TransAmerica Trail became U.S. Bicycle Route 1 76 in the 1970s, with the tour serving as a “corridor” for officials to consider. This causes us some difficulty, because we have mapped some tours but tagged them as essentially the same thing as designated routes. Now we find a need to somehow distinguish between the two.

If it is truly the case that “the US has some difficulty” distinguishing between designated routes (I think there is no question these should be in OSM and that we have tagged them correctly or almost-correctly) and “tours” (“shared rides”), let’s fix that.

I think Minh may be talking about some routes in Kentucky (and maybe Ohio?) which are not necessarily “officially designated” (by a state-level Department of Transportation) but ARE in OSM tagged network=rcn. If we should correct this (with different tagging in OSM, or even removal of these), we can start a new topic to do so.