In Florida there currently several different naming conventions in use for ref, unsigned_ref (and other related tags) naming conventions in use. From my understanding most use either the SR or FL followed by the road number for state roads. When there are multiple variations of a tag’s value like this in usage that conflict essentially directly it is important to come together and standardize on one variant to lower confusion amongst data consumers and mappers alike. Thus the goal of this is to determine what the local Florida OSM community prefers to go with and standardize around that. Aka should we use SR or FL in ref, unsigned_ref and other similar tags.
I personally prefer going with SR as the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT from here on out) use “SR” in all of their official websites and generally across the board along with other county (city and other) governments throughout the state also do, I feel it would only be logical to also tag in that fashion in OSM. This is in line with the direction other states have gone. The following is an example where local mapper in Utah did something similar: Utah State Highway Ref Tagging.
Again the goal here is to come to a consensus on the matter so feel free to comment both if you agree and if you do not. I have also put in a poll you can vote on so those that would like to contribute but do not want to comment can also do so.
Which should we go with:
SR
FL
0voters
Implementation:
I would be glad to do any necessary changes my self if need be, though it may take me a few months. Once a consensus is met here I will open up a conversation for how to implement the consensus where we can discus how the changes will be implemented and who will do what and where. But that is a conversation for the future.
Tengo pregunta. ¿Qué ocurre con los documentos históricos, para aquellos de nosotros que editamos OHM? Hace 20 años probablemente se leía como FL-XX. Para OSM, estoy de acuerdo con SR. Para OHM, preferiría FL-XX.
As far as I know, FDOT uses “SR-123” or “SR 123” in contexts that require plain text, such as older variable message signs.
The history here is that @NE2 favored real-world abbreviations in most states, whether “NY 123” in New York or “SR 123” in California. They used “SR 123” in Florida to some extent but often used just “123” based on the literal text on the shield. They were by far the most prolific mapper in Florida until they were pushed out of the project in 2013.
In 2016, @LeTopographeFou and possibly others went through changing all the way refs to “FL 123” to match the FIPS/USPS state abbreviation, similar to what happened in Utah and Texas. They probably missed or didn’t care about unsigned_ref=*, which is much more obscure. Proponents of these state abbreviations used to cite machine readability and unambiguity. However, now that route relations power pattern-accurate shields in a variety of renderers, way refs only matter in plain-text contexts and only as a backwards compatibility shim. The state abbreviations remain only through force of habit.
I had no idea Floridians used to write or signpost “FL-123”. Was that related to the former system of primary and secondary state roads? Ultimately it shouldn’t matter too much for either OSM or OHM, since route relations should be the primary method for recording route membership. We’re close to having an OHM shield renderer make use of the route relations. To the extent that anyone wants a plain-text short-form route number anyways, I’d favor using the “SR 123” format in OSM based on real-world usage, to steer data consumers toward route relations. Way refs aren’t supported by any OHM renderer, so I’d skip them entirely there in favor of route relations.
I remember back in the late 90s signs reading FL-XX. When I was going between Albany, Ga & New Orleans, my exit was US 441 (I think) & the old exit number was 19. The times I had to stop for gas between those 2 points, I’d get off at FL-XX. I’m not sure when FL-XX was replaced, though. It may have been at the same time they changed the exit numbers throughout the state.
Other states/territories/subdivisions included:
Alabama
Arkansas
D.C.
Georgia
Indiana
Kansas
Louisiana
Michigan
Mississippi
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Puerto Rico
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Missing states/territories:
Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
New Jersey
New York
North Dakota
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Guam
U.S.V.I.
Northern Mariana Islands
American Samoa
Thanks for getting this together! I updated South Carolina, where state routes use SC- ref.
In a related but separate convention for South Carolina: the state also maintains a numbering system for all roads in the state : S-CC-# , where S is constant, CC is the county number, and # is unique to that road. When cleaning TIGER in SC, I wrote a macro to capture the S-CC-# roads for major and county roads from TIGER notation into reg_ref=S-CC-#
Similarly depending on internal county notation convention, I captured county notation into loc_ref=
FDOT uses SR for “Florida State Roads” https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/default-source/statistics/rci/features/111-state-and-secondary-road-number.pdf Up until 1930 the state used FLA # on a blue diamond signage, then started to switch to the black state outline and also implemented secondary routes with an S-# abbreviation. Secondaries were transitioned to county control in 1977. In 1945 they did a major renumbering of state roads and officially started using SR-# from then on. FL-# is used on modern digital maps and accepted by mail services as an alternate but not an official designation by the state.
I have edited the main topic post with a poll, so feel free to fill that in if you want so that it can become clearer where the Fl OSM community stands on SR vs FL.
I feel like this was already solved by One feature, one element: The correct answer is not to fiddle with ref on ways in the first place, routes are defined by relations. For example, Florida’s Turnpike would be…
Oklahoma doesn’t have state routes, we only have state highways. I wouldn’t expect anybody here to know what “SR” even means without being led to the context, and even then we’re not exactly talking a guarantee. Temporary signs and old (20+ years) signs say SH or OK with roughly equal infrequency, never SR. Hearing it out loud, tourists have no idea what SH is, and the locals wouldn’t sus out what SR is without being led to the context; everyone recognizes “OK xx” or “Oklahoma xx” as a state highway. The overwhelming majority of signs (including the green guide signs) use either the generic “white circle” state highway shield or the state-specific shields for the three states that have state routes/highways in Oklahoma.
I understand that Oklahoma does not use SR but here in Florida both the state and local governments use SR to refer to the state routes, it is also on the signs. As an example here is a page for an ongoing project from the Greater Miami Expressway Agency (GMX for short): SR 836/I-95/I-395 Interchange. I have also linked one from the Florida Department of Transportation: SR 9336/SW 392 St from Everglades National Park to SR 5/US 1. As you can see all of these refer to the state roads as SR. That is why I prefer SR for Florida, the point here is to figure out what local mappers here in Fl prefer and standardize on that.
The ref’s are still mapped on the roads so I think that standardizing how we tag those would be important; in a way the fact that the unsigned_ref, ref and others use different values (some FL and some SR) could be confusing on its own, especially for newer contributors.
OK, but, Washington SRs and Florida SRs are different, which is why these are disambiguated by state abbreviation to start with.
OK, and?
Relations were introduced as a primitive in the OSM data model nearly 20 years ago specifically to address road routes and turn restrictions, and have been extended to other features since for various things since. We’ve had bigger changes with less planning happen since this one was initiated start and finish faster than this (expressways moving from highway=trunk to highway=* plus expressway=yes leaps to mind). Just kill the dinosaur already.
So then you are saying to remove the ref and unsigned_ref tags from roads all together then?
Because if we keep them around we should still try and maintain things to the best of our ability over time. My goal is to have the data quality in OSM in Miami Dade County (and OSM in general) be as high as possible, and to me having a descrepacy like this, where some use SR and others us FL is an issue with the data, from how I see it any data issue found should be fixed. As these things very from state to state it should be standardized on a state by state basis based on local preferences which are highly influenced by the local DOT. If we end up at a point where things are standardized, things will be easier to deal with in the future. Also if we can get to a point where everything is consistent across the state, at least in my opinion, it would be an improvement over the current state of things.
At least in my head things being mapped in a consistent matter is important and is a mark of a well mapped area and in a way a mark of a well mapped area.
As long as we are maintaining some tagging scheme, it should be mapped as well as we can.
Ultimately, I don’t have a fundamental problem with this. But if they are going to be maintained, then being consistently unambiguous across all states is valuable (and thus SH/SR isn’t useful).
Great argument in favor of “SR”, which multiple states already use. The U.S. community never fully adopted FIPS state abbreviations in way refs and shouldn’t begin now. If some DOTs happen to use state FIPS abbreviations in short-form route numbers, then by all means use them, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in Florida.
No, the main motivation at the time was to facilitate the first generation of shield renderers, namely MapQuest. Crude geocoding was at best a secondary reason. Otherwise, we would’ve come up with a system for disambiguating the different county route systems by county as well. Last I checked, multiple counties in multiple states have them as “CR”.
Nowadays, why do we even need the way ref to clarify which state the parent route relations are located in? By insisting on disambiguated way refs, you’re letting data consumers off the hook in terms of supporting route relations. In desperation, CoMaps is even checking for whitespace in way refs to choose the right shield in different jurisdictions that share the same alphabetic prefixes, despite having the capability to consume route relations. Imagine if we were to roll out the red carpet for that approach by consistently indicating the jurisdiction in the way ref. It would be tantamount to giving up on route relations, after all we’ve been through.
Utah’s recent move from “UT” to “SR” broke Mapbox Streets. Let that be motivation for them to implement route relation support. Until they do, you have something tangible to point to as the downside of relying on way refs.
Florida actually has roads that us CR for county road, as an example take the following way that is part of a road that came up in conversations yesterday on the OSMUS slack.
Yes, I mentioned that ironically. Out-of-state proponents of FIPS state codes sometimes fudge Ohio’s county-specific prefixes like “C-”, “CH”, and “CO”[1] into a uniform “CR”, apparently unaware that Ohio lacks a statewide coordinated system of county routes, let alone a national one.
A lot of states do happen to use their FIPS state codes in road abbreviations, so I see no problem with that. More to the point, why does consistency with this supermajority matter if the key doesn’t matter in the first place? Embrace the chaos. Stop tagging for a renderer that only you and I remember anymore.
The U.S. community never fully adopted FIPS state abbreviations in way refs and shouldn’t begin now. If some DOTs happen to use state FIPS abbreviations in short-form route numbers, then by all means use them, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in Florida.