Talk:WikiProject Belgium/Cycle Routes

How to keep track of cycle node network progression

The big table with numbers doesn't really work well, numbers occur more than once in the same networks, so even splitting up in networks and then have tables for all of them won't work (not to mention the size those tables would have...). Splitting in networks also has the problem that the networks are connected with each other so there's often not a real division possible between them. So I didn't have a good idea yet... --Eimai 21:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's try something out: let's divide provinces into "sectors" which aren't too small, but are small enough not to contain many duplicate nodes. Let's call the area inside the boundaries Scheldt, railway Antwerp-Mechelen, Netekanaal and Rupel "Antwerp-Boom", between Albertkanaal, railway Antwerp-Mechelen and Netekanaal "Antwerp-Lier" (these are the two which I'll point my attention to firstly). We'll need to define much more similar-sized sectors where people start tagging, but at least I can start working with that now :-) --Eimai 19:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it sounds good. I also think we don't really have another option, given the constraints. -- Polyglot 19:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we're going to need some better distinction once, possibly allowing duplicate numbers in one network (I counted 7 "03" nodes in Antwerp alone...). Limburg is trivial since they have three numbers and can all go together, but for the rest I guess we should start using the real areas like Scheldeland, Antwerpse Kempen, Vlaamse Ardennen, Waasland, Meetjesland, Leiestreek etc. Dividing into sections as I did seems to be quite hard in retrospect... --Eimai 22:54, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

My impression was that we were doing quite well. Anyway, I found a site that has them all already:

[1]

This should make it easier to find where the node numbers are recycled. I don't understand what they were thinking when setting up this network in Antwerp. It wouldn't have been that hard to copy the concept of using three digits from Limburg. Anyway, to me it's great fun to go around and 'discover' where the nodes are... --Polyglot 23:14, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the reason is simple: two numbers is easier than three (to remember and to read), and you'll never see more than a few numbers at a time, which makes it possible to reuse them. Anyway, dividing Antwerp in 7 sections just because one node number appears 7 times is quite stupid, so I'm going to look at different ways, furthermore because other networks with two numbers per node (which is every network in Belgium except for Limburg and Vélo Tour in East-Belgium) do exactly the same... --Eimai 11:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't really have problems with writing down or remembering node numbers that consist of more then 2 digits, neither have I heared anyone complain about this. The nodes in Limburg are layed out so there isn't much confusion possible (you won't ever be givin the option to go to 321 or 221 for instance), and so you'll concentrate on the last two digits usually. --vitto 13:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The same numbers are used around Herentals and around Hoogstraten, both part of "Kempen North-East". When trying to fill in the second table there, it just looked like a mess, so I didn't save it. --Cartinus 21:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've stopped recording changes for now as it was becoming very hard to enter correctly, and the table becomes more and more unreadable. I don't want to split up a province like Antwerp in ten areas to make sure all numbers are different in one area so I guess we need someone clever who knows a good method... Maybe we should put maps of the network in this page? --Eimai 11:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed on [2] that they associate a zone with each node (Limburg, Antwerpen 2: Kempen-noord, Meetjesland, etc). Are these all official subdevisions, or are some of them own conventions? My knownledge is limited to Limburg, Meetjesland and Vlaamse Ardennen -- these maps are sold sepately. The backside of the the latter two further more mention maps for Waasland, Leiestreek and Scheldeland. Fietsnet.be however mentions Leiestreet Oost and West... --vitto 13:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

They take them from the maps. They just copy most of the routes instead of mapping them like we do. For Antwerp for example there are four maps available: Scheldeland, and Antwerpse Kempen 1, 2 and 3 (but the boundaries aren't really clear, and signs don't always tell it correctly either). --Eimai 16:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmz. Because that would be a possible way to distinguis nodes with the same number. Problems that need to be resolved before we can do this however are determining those boundries (which might indeed be (too?) difficult), and deciding on how to tag relations with these zones. For Limburg I'm trying to allways add the tag "operator=Toerisme Limburg", but I guess that's not a feasible option for all of our networks.. --vitto 17:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

If it were that easy... I counted seven "03" junctions in Antwerp for example, while there are basically two networks (Scheldeland, Antwerpse Kempen, although you could count the routes in the city of Antwerp as a network as well). Anyway, it became too hard to maintain, and if people don't update it, it's useless to keep track of them manually. --Eimai 19:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

My idea in the long term was to replace manual editing by some tool that generates statistics and reports errors automaticly. I have a small script that reports errors for my own edits, but I'm not sure if it could be extended in a nice, generic way for all nodes in Belgium (or even the Benelux). The current script isn't flawless either. Some checking depends on the OSM Relation Analyser which for the moment doesn't deal correctly with roundabouts. I guess it's something not worth spending too much at time for the moment.. --vitto 21:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me the wiki-pages on this website are far too spead out... This page suggests creating a relation of the rcn_ref nodes and connection-relations. --vitto 00:51, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

That page was still at proposal level. It still needed proper discussion, and has some issues: some nodes in the network aren't assigned a network for example (while I haven't tried it out, I think it's possible to go from Antwerp to Mechelen without seeing a sign that's mentioning a network like "Antwerpse Kempen" or "Scheldeland"), and sometimes you get wrong signs in some places, like a sign saying "Scheldeland" where it should be "Meetjesland". And borderline nodes are a problem as well. But anyway, I'll ask Ldp to look into that page once more, but for the moment: don't assume that everything will be tagged like it says on that page. --Eimai 11:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

In know it's still a proposal, and don't (yet) expect to be applied everywhere. But as it could be applied to Limburg and helps to aggregate these node's in order to keep track of the progress made, I created the relation anyways. It woudn't be too much work to remove the relation at a later date if an alternative consenus is agreed upon. I also discovered the cycle node network in Limburg is actually split up into three (four? De voerstreek) subnetworks, but I don't know which nodes belong to which subnetwork, so I haven't created those subnetworks for the time beiing. --vitto 14:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm already tagging West Zeeuws-Vlaanderen West Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, Oost Zeeuws-Vlaanderen Oost Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, Meetjesland Meetjesland, and Waasland Waasland with my scheme. --Ldp 16:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I eventually made some time for the script I was talking about earlier. It's currently set for the Cycle Node Network of Limburg and uses a relation that holds all nodes of that network as suggested by Ldp. Although some functionaly is written to spot some common errors (such as unwanted "ref" tags, duplicate members in a relation, incomplete roads), these aren't yet displayed on the page. --vitto 02:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Enabling easy(easier) checking with scripts was one of the main goals in my tagging proposal. I'm also planning to show the extent of the named networks on http://www.openfietskaart.nl, in some way. I haven't checked out your script, yet. --Ldp 16:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

At the moment it isn't anywhere near spectacular. It just shows it's indeed easy to collect the data you need, so one can perform any number of tasks on them. It's written in OO PHP and is heavily based on the [OSM Route Manager]. --vitto 17:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Mind you that I intended all routes to be part of the network relation, not just the connections to other networks. --Ldp 18:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't added the connections to the relation yet as it's quite a lot of work, which could for the biggest part could be done automatically. Once all node's are in place and most relations are more or less okay, I'll add them too :-) Good news on the script-side too.. I noticed the Route Manager I based my code on allready has the functionality to deal with roundabouts in a relation. It uses the same algorithm I had in mind which makes a local simplification of roundabouts by replacing them with 1 node. This means I can do pretty much everything I had in mind without too much effort. I keep you posted when it's more usable. --vitto 07:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It's really not more work than adding the nodes if you have the right editor. Open relation editor for the network, select a route relation, click the Add selection button. (JOSM) --Ldp 21:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Vlaams-Brabant

I think someone needs to ping Andy Allan, the person who runs the cycle map, to put more of Belgium in the part that gets a weekly update... Otherwise it'll take months before the cycle nodes in Vlaams-Brabant appear. --Eimai 21:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I sent him an email. --Polyglot 13:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Cycle routes with round signs?

While cycling today I found the cycle route "Frans Bruynseelspad" in Duffel and Rumst. What I immediately noticed is that it didn't have the usual six-sided signs for themed routes, but round ones. It mentioned its distance 37km and had the picture of a bicycle. But I can find almost nothing about the route, so I'm now wondering if there are other routes like it... Does anyone know more about them? --Eimai 20:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

One knows that there's not much information about this cycle route when googling "Frans Bruynseelspad" brings this page as the first result. I investigated the signs a bit more, but there's not a clue who actually maintains this route (if it's still being maintained of course...). Only the route name, a bicycle, the distance, an arrow and the shield (wapenschild) of Rumst. Oh well, I guess it can be an adventurous route when it's unmaintained and I try to follow it once... --Eimai 22:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone...

Someone really doesn't like that they reuse numbers on the cycle node network :-) There are several hundred nodes per province, so they just have to do it (or add an extra number of course like in Limburg, but there are much more than 1000 nodes in Flanders, so that'll become a problem then :-). You only need to get no number twice too close to each other, since a general person doesn't cycle at 100km/h the chance of seeing the same number twice under one hour is nihil... But sure, it makes our life who are trying to organize them somewhat a bit harder...

On another node: planning cycle trips to map as many new routes in the network as possible is becoming a nice algorithmic problem :-) --Eimai 12:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Themed routes via cycle node networks

Should we tag the themed routes which follow cycle node networks instead of the usual six-sided signs? These routes have a starting point which is marked with a six-sided sign, but then you can only follow the route if you got the nodes you have to follow from somewhere. The Bart Wellensroute is an example of this (this specific route is also special since it has an optional loop which has no signs at all). --Eimai 20:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a rather old question to reply to, but anyways... Have you made a decision on this one allready? To me it seems that if a route is build on top of an other network, it should be implemented as a relalation on top of existing ones. So a themed route like you described would simply be a collection of CycleNodeNetwork-connections. I'm not sure whether current renderers can resolve relations that consists of other relations (possibly alongside regular ways -- which in the "Bart Wellens" case could be that loop), but it should definately not be a restriction. --vitto 17:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

We can't map those kind of routes, as you need to make use of a copyrighted map to be able to follow the route. Maybe we can tag the location of the only sign there is. But the rest is out of the question. --Eimai 19:42, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Node 29 near Boom

Could the person who added junction node 29 near Boom recheck its location? I thought it was much closer to the railway (but I haven't been there the past months so it may have changed of course...) --Eimai 14:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

yeah that was me marking it. the camera was not synced precisely enough to get the pictures exactly there where they were taken. To be sure I'll just remove the node and let someone else map it correctly. --ivom 19:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"Semi-signed" routes...

Doing a bit of work on the left bank of the Scheldt in Antwerp I came upon this awkward thing for the shortcut of the Sint-Annekesroute: there's a sign telling you where the shortcut starts, and that's immediately the last "Sint-Annekesroute Verkorting" sign.

Now, the reason why it's not signed further can be found on the information sign near the Voetgangerstunnel: you have to follow the Aardbeiroute until you're back on the Sint-Annekesroute. So, now I'm wondering whether I should also tag that part of the Aardbeiroute as the shortcut of Sint-Annekesroute or not... --Eimai 14:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)