Lambertus <osm@na1400.info> writes:
There's a question on the OSM forum about the naming of highways in the default stylesheet which comes down to this: if a ref is available then that seems always used even if a name is also available, can this be changed to show the name as well?
http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=68439#p68439
Not what you asked, but it would be nice to have a way to represent in the db which of ref and name is the "primary name" from the point of view of signage and road users. Near me, proprietary maps sometime show Route 117 as "Great Road", but everyone calls it 117 to the point where saying Great Road risks miscommunicating. Also, Route 2 (state route) and US 202 overlap in central/western mass, and OSM/mapnik labels it US 202. This is wrong, because SR 2 is much more important than US 202. Everyone on that road knows they are on SR2, and only some people pay attention to US 202 coming and going for that stretch. (And yes, the motorway/trunk/primary distinctions are entirely correct -- thanks to whoever did it.) http://osm.org/go/ZfDIAyM-- So maybe having one of primary_name=name primary_name=ref:us_us primary_name=ref:us_sr as a hint for describing the road (in all contexts).