Reporter: EAman
[Submitted to the original trac issue database at 6.48pm, Saturday, 19th November 2011]

I'd like to propose rendering not just the ref tag but also the name of cycle routes at high zoom levels. This would be particularly useful in countries that don't have the well structured numbering system for routes upon which the OSM documentation for cycle route tagging seems to be based.

Here are two examples where the map could be improved by different rendering:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.237&lon=8.2525&zoom=14&layers=C
has two regional cycle routes with ref=RuO and ref=Aml. If I were biking in that area I would be interested in knowing the full name of the routes (which is in the name tags).

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=58.805&lon=17.309&zoom=10&layers=C
shows two "competing" and partially overlapping national cycle networks. One is named "Sverigeleden" but is rendered as "23" since the section number is 23. These section numbers are never used on signs and it is confusing to most users of the map that the name of the route is never shown. The other route is called "Cykelspret lngs ostkusten" and doesn't have a ref tag short enough to be rendered at this zoom level. At higher zoom levels the full name is rendered, which is what most users would expect.

At lower zoom levels I suggest keeping the current rendering of only the ref tag, which contains an abbreviation of the name of the route when there is no better reference. (Allowing up to 4 or 5 characters rather than 3 would be useful, though.) Starting at zoomlevel 13 when rendering of routes changes anyway I suggest showing both the name and the ref value -- perhaps the name followed by the ref in parenthesis or vice versa.