What is the proper use of destination tagging?

[AlaskaDave (Dave Swarthout (AlaskaDave))]

I’m confused by the use of the tags destination=* and destination:steet=* on a motorway_link exit ramp.

My example motorway_link exits OR 126 in Eugene, Oregon, way id:36925738, but there are many exit ramps with similar tagging in this area. It is tagged with destination=Autzen Stadium and also with the tag, destination:street=Country Club Road;Coburg Road. The destination:street tag is marked as deprecated in the Wiki but it is common (Taginfo shows 75K instances) and is apparently still very much in use.

The destination tag is intended to inform a driver of the town or city the exit leads to but in a city or residential area, the destination is often unclear or, as in this case, is not a city but two majot highways and one point of interest. IMO, such exits would be better served by using the destination:street tag, but that tagging has been deprecated. In my example, the sign for Autzen Stadium appears very close to the exit while there are several signs on the motorway 1/2 and 1/4 miles before the exit that advertise the upcoming exit as one going to Country Club Road and Coburg Road. In other words, the driver doesn’t see what’s on the signs on his GPS when approaching the exit because only the Autzen Stadium destination appears. It’s confusing and IMO misleading because except on game days the stadium isn’t the primary reason for taking that exit

I compile my own Garmin compatible maps for my GPS and I could add processing for destination:street tags in addition to the standard destination=* tag in my code but I wonder if that’s the wisest course considering that tag’s deprecated status. Another possibility would be to alter the destination tag to destination:Country Club Road;Coburg Road;Autzen Stadium.

I’m looking for opinions about the usage of both of those tags.

TIA

[mueschel]

Did you see this thread with some discussion of the intention behind using destination:street?

Usage of the destination and destination:street tag with the street name

Hello! I’m Anastasia. I’m an OSM communications specialist on the OSM mapping team at Lyft. Due to the lack of a unified approach in OSM, we would like to bring up the topic of using the destination:street/destination tags with street names. While working on our Destination signs project (Exit and Destination Signs project · Issue #18 · Test-DCT/OSM-LYFT-DCT · GitHub) we came across the issue of tagging street names. Currently while mapping US cities, we are relying on Minh Nguyen’s proposal …

Where did you find the information that this tag is deprecated?

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@AlaskaDave

In other words, the driver doesn’t see what’s on the signs on his GPS when approaching the exit because only the Autzen Stadium destination appears. It’s confusing and IMO misleading because except on game days the stadium isn’t the primary reason for taking that exit

It sounds like Autzen Stadium isn’t actually one of the exit’s primary destinations, just what the standards sometimes call a supplemental or secondary destination. If so, it should be removed from the destination tag.

Some mapping teams used to go overboard tagging anything on any green sign as a destination. While they’ve since learned to be more nuanced, there are still a great many remnants of this former practice all over the U.S.