Hi all, I just wanted to introduce myself to everyone on the ZA list. I recently discovered OSM and think it is a wonderful initiative. I am on the KZN south coast, and have started mapping the areas I travel frequently. I have also enlisted the help of friends and colleagues with GPS units whereby they email me their tracks when they can, and I can then map them.
One of the areas I have difficulty with is obtaining the street names. Many of the streets are not marked, or the signs are badly deteriorated (I have resorted to asking residents what the street name is!). There are also many back roads (both dirt and tar) which I assume would be district roads (D???), but again no markings. Is there any reliable source (perhaps government archives or something) that I am allowed to use? The other difficulty is with road classifications. At present, I am tagging all roads in urban areas as highway:tertiary except for roads in residential areas, which are highway:residential. I am tagging dirt roads that are main roads (Dxxx) as highway:secondary and surface:unpaved, while farm roads are highway:track with tracktype:gradex. National routes (N2) as either highway:motorway or highway:trunk depending on whether there is a median present. Other main routes (R102, R620 etc) as highway:primary, and other named main roads (not Rxxx routes) linking towns as highway:secondary. Does this make sense? Also, what is the convention regarding ref:* and name:* tags? What I have done is use the ref tag for the Nx, Rxxx or Dxxx name, and the name tag for the descriptive name. For example, the R620 is called Marine Drive along most of the south coast, so then that is ref:R620 and name:Marine Drive, but for a section around Margate it splits into 2 roads, where one is name:Marine Drive running through town, and ref:R620 goes around. I'm pleased to be able to help, but want to make sure I am doing this correctly! How many mappers do we have in SA? Kind regards, Philip _______________________________________________ Talk-ZA mailing list Talk-ZA@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-za
