Talk:Lake Michigan Circle Tour Bicycle Route

Was current

(Used to be called "Discussion: One would expect the following in the discussion page. But it is too current so it is here for now.") This attempt at putting on OSM what is a customary multi-day bike trip for many people appears to be pre-mature.

This route could be a quasi-national privately managed route: at best. But there are a number of hoops that would need jumping through.

I used http://bikelakemichigan.com as my primary source. It appears to be a one person effort. Their route differs from the one mapped here. This one here used the USBRS Michigan #35 route through Lower Michigan. The issue is how to map the alternates. Either create a LMCT relationship through Michigan or break up the USBRS relation into sub relations in order to connect the alternate routes to the USBRS relation. The biggest question cycling users of this mapping want to know is mileage differences as well as road condition differences, "If I take alternate X how many miles will it add or subtract?"

The advantage to using existing trails is that if those trails change their routing those changes get reflected in this map as well.

See here for political/technical issues of mapping long distance routes:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_States_Long_Distance_Trails

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_U.S._Bicycle_Route_System

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Bicycle_Networks

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:United_States/Bicycle_Networks

https://cycling.waymarkedtrails.org/

http://www.opencyclemap.org/

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Stevea

https://vimeo.com/91897324 (Steve All 2014)

I would appreciate it if you would contact me before doing anything with this.

Wegerje (talk) 01:07, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Between here and the next section (Initiation) was in the Page, it has been moved here after the mid-2019 events below. Stevea (talk) 03:54, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Initiation

It seems like it is time to start a Discussion page about this route. Stevea (talk) 14:42, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I take your points. I doubt that I can defend the route against the critera you quote. Will change to RCN and will accept deletion of relation gracefully. Thanks. Wegerje (talk) 16:31, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Wegerje, thank you for your grace, even if I didn't comport myself with as much grace here as I could have. I think network=rcn is a much more appropriate tag for this (it isn't local), though it may also be "simply a good ride" (I kind of doubt that, especially if it is the sort of thing where dozens, hundreds, even thousands of riders, and perhaps even anually, where many gather to ride the route). That sort of route merits importance enough to be an rcn, in my opinion. Thank you for good dialog. Stevea (talk) 17:13, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Changes

Changes made on July 18, 2019. 1st by Wegerje (changeset/72391498), a single ncn -> rcn change to the "top" super-relation (8616814). 2nd by Stevea (changeset/72410604), were substantial and were characterized as a "first improvement" due to many remaining Validator warnings (not errors, as the changeset comment notes). As a start, in addition to a number of FIXME tags remaining, highly questionable structure exists in the "top" super-relation: it has two children relations, one child of which has four grandchildren (of the "top") some of which contain a single USBR, some of which contain multiple routes. I'm not sure bicycle route relations should be nested this deep, especially as the leaf (great-grandchildren) relations are national-level (network=ncn relations. It is confusing (to me) that "regional" routes contain national routes as great-grandchildren. Stevea (talk) 01:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Relations are an important mapping tool. They allow existing map objects to be assembled into new entities. I suggest that you not try to take human meta-phors too far. Relations are not biological. We can create entities with relations that could not exist in biology. Yes that means we could create nonsensical structures. But when we do let’s look first as to why we may have attempted to create the structure before we attempt to “fix” it. Likely approaches may involve several adjustments rather than one.

Tags on the other hand are not a structural tool but rather a descriptive one. Whereas Relations are limited by actual coding rules, Tags have no actual coding rules (beyond their existence). The goal of tags is to help understand the structure created by the relation.

A problem for OSM mappers is the tag Network. The root of the problem is the mixture of the logical and the social tag types. Local and Regional tag types are undefined but clearly understood types. But National and by extension International types have specific definitions. One definition is provided by The United Nations organization.

So here are two alternate consistent sets of network tags: 1) Municipal, Intermunicipal, National and International. 2) Local, Regional, Interregional and Continental. One is consistently social constructs while the other is natural or logical constructs. OSM in general rightly tries to span both realities. But at the specifics level it can be hard for mappers like ourselves. For example the network tag. The tag works fine in Europe. The EU is a supra national social construct that can “authorize” an International Network of routes between a lot of small and medium sized “Nations”. But here in North America the nations are huge and anarchistic. Good luck waiting for authority here.

1-9 miles local

10-99 regional

100-999 interregional

1000 and up continental.

A days walk

A weeks walk

A months walk

A years walk.

Wegerje (talk) 12:09, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not taking "human metaphors too far." Using words like "child," "sibling," and "parent" is quite well-established in computer science and database usage to denote relationships between data structures. Even JOSM's relation editor has "Parent Relations" and "Child Relations" buttons to display these.

Having created thousands of relations and myriad tags in OSM over a decade of mapping in this project, I am quite familiar with how these are used. Indeed, I substantially authored the wiki documentation you cite and I actually AM the speaker whose video you link. So I believe I do understand the concepts of how to do this, and I have for some time. I remain confused as to why grandchildren relations of a regional (mid-level) relation are themselves national (higher-level) relations. You did not explain this, and again, I ask the question as to why you would structure things this way.

I don't believe that tag network=* is "a problem for OSM mappers." I believe it is both well-documented and well-understood (well, in the specific locality of the USA, where I and others who I collaborate with use it). Additionally, tag cycle_network=* allows greater specificity of identification of similar networks at a particular "level" (e.g. national vs. regional), allowing disambiguation between potentially misunderstood memberships and by encouraging the inclusion of all members in a particular network. As the cycle_network=* wiki page states succinctly, "Ideally, all route relations in a single cycleway network should be tagged with the same cycle_network=* value."

I have no idea what is meant by "social tag types."

The 1) and 2) sets of network=* tags you list are completely confusing to me. Either you haven't said what you mean by defining them as you do, or they are simply incorrect: we don't have these values for this tag, neither in your list denoted 1) nor in your list denoted 2). Nor do I understand what you mean by "natural or logical constructs." Huh? Also, the United Nations has nothing whatsoever to do with this conversation and I have no idea what you mean by introducing it.

If you are having trouble understanding "at the specifics level for mappers like ourselves," I suggest you read United_States/Bicycle_Networks which rather matter-of-factly states how these tags are used, at least in the United States. (You do reference this wiki on the Page). You say "the tag works fine in Europe," yet I'd also say "the tag works fine in the USA, too." I mean, it is documented right there (the previous link) how. And no, the EU is not a "supra national social construct," OSM says so here.

I don't want to either start an argument here, nor get too political, but I must take issue with your statement "here in North America the nations are huge and anarchistic. Good luck waiting for authority here." No, these nations are not anarchistic, they are (fairly well-run, in my opinion) republics with co-equal branches of governments, bicameral legislatures, elections, direct representation, strong democratic traditions (especially in the USA), and a balance of authority shared between the People and their elected representatives. Does that sound like anarchy to you? I don't need to "wait for authority" here (e.g. in how to tag bicycle routes in the USA, and at what level, in OSM): I can simply read our wiki and see how we already do it.

And what is your 1-9, 10-99 list above? A proposal? If so, I reject it in favor of the system that OSM has in place, has been using for about 15 years already, and is well documented in that and several other wikis appropriate to their localities around the world. Stevea (talk) 12:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Not internally anarchistic but externally. There are only treaties between the nations of North America. There had been no real handing over of sovereignty to a Supra national entity between the US and Canada and Mexico. That’s all I meant.

I have not had a chance to review my relational structures. I am limited to my phone here. I may have made mistakes in my lower level relations in assigning the tags. Especially now that I changed the highest level tag to RCN per your suggestion.

Your reply above has overwhelmed my abilities to reply. I too am not desirous of argument. I totally respect your accomplishments and capabilities as regards to OSM and information technology. I apologize if my choice of words and phraseology have been awkward.

I separate a lot of reality between naturally structured and socially or human structured. Nation states are of course social constructs. A path in the woods is a natural structure when created by animals and even often when created by humans. That’s all I mean.

I am much too lowly an OSM mapper to suggest modifications to its methods. Wegerje (talk) 13:30, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Wegerje, I'm not trying to "drub" you with an attitude of superiority or arrogance, rather I attempt to understand what you wish to accomplish here. (You might, and I'm sorry if you do, but I do not consider other mappers "lowly"). Yes, I am that confused by the data you have entered in a highly-complex set of relations and relationships between these relations, the Page itself as an unclear document of either intent or after-the-fact documentation and this Discussion. I do not mean to overwhelm you, I am simply attempting to understand what it is you are doing in the map, by your documentation attemps in the Page, and I do so by dialoging with you here in this Discussion. It doesn't seem that difficult to me, yet I am still having a hard time understanding. If there is something I can do to better these circumstances, I ask you to tell me what that is and I'll offer you my best attempt to do so.

The change you made to the "top-level" relation to simply change network=ncn to network=rcn was literally the tip of the iceberg of the resulting cascading set of changes I found myself taking about a half-hour to do yesterday, simply to assemble into something resembling a coherent whole, consistent with OSM conventions of good data entry of relations. No big deal, I was happy to do this editing, as usually the data themselves present their structure in an orderly, easy-to-understand way, but they did not in this case. If you cannot properly edit these because you are "limited to your phone," I suggest you abandon responsibility for these Lake Michigan Circle Tour Bicycle Route relations, or use a more substantial editing environment, preferably one that runs JOSM (virtually any desktop- or laptop-class computer; you may be able to find free usage of of a Java-compatible computer at your local public library). I say this because of JOSM's superior (in my opinion) ability to edit relations (iD and other editors, not so much).

If mentally dichotomizing into "naturally" vs. "socially or human" (structured) is helpful for you, I promise you I won't get in your way. However, as you intend to communicate these concepts to others, we, in turn, find it helpful to know how you mean for them to map onto the existing constructs we use in OSM (like relations that have proper network=* tag values). Precise communication about precise objects like tag values in a mapping database allows for such understanding to occur. Stevea (talk) 13:55, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Permission to use data

A basic question to ask (even as all this structure has already been added to the map, whether "correct" or not I can't say now) is this: does OSM (Wegerje?) have permission from "the single individual" (who it is believed publishes the route data on a website) to enter these route data into OSM according to our ODbL? Stevea (talk) 01:57, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

There exists no body of people who oversee an “official” (in quotes) route for bikes to use around Lake Michigan. What is mapped are a collection of existing bike routes mapped by others without regard for their utility for biking around Lake Michigan and connections between those existing routes used by some bikers themselves to accomplish that goal.

As such there is no permission to be asked for.

In such case perhaps it is best to remove all mention of any previous individual cyclists who have circled the lake. Wegerje (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Wegerje, I believe you are mistaken on a number of levels. There ARE at least two "bodies of people" who oversee official routes for bikes in Michigan, at least at the national level for USBRs. One is MDOT, Michigan's Department of Transportation (who select and maintain the routes), the other is AASHTO (who officially designate and catalogue the routes). The former represent how the People of the state of Michigan wish for there to be national bicycle routes "so designated as USBRs," the latter represent state transportation officials assembled into a quasi-national organization (they are non-governmental), but the government (the US Congress) has given them the authority to assert route numbers into the three numbering protocols they oversee (United States Highways, United States Interstate Highways, and United States Bicycle Routes). So, they do. OSM accommodates this by faithfully representing the USBRs in properly-tagged relations which contain the correct members and documenting how this is done in our wikis (United_States/Bicycle_Networks and United_States_Bicycle_Route_System, which, again, you cite in the Page).

If you do assert (as you do in OSM and attempt to document in the Page and discuss here) that there is such a thing as "Lake Michigan Circle Tour Bicycle Route" then, yes, it IS (it must be) administered/overseen by a body of people. You yourself said that you believe it is administered by a single person who publishes the data on a website. Therefore, those data belong to that individual or organization, they are likely copyrighted (owned, proprietary, commercial...) data (though it is possible they are not, what OSM refers to as "quasi-private") and yes, therefore there WOULD be "permission to be asked for." This is a fundamental tenet in OSM: that our data must be compatible with our ODbL.

If you do not assert that there is such a thing as "Lake Michigan Circle Tour Bicycle Route" ("officially") then you are asserting this is simply "a good bike ride." Stated simply, those data do not belong in OSM and are regularly removed when they are found, usually by good dialog with the creators of those relations as they are pointed to our wiki documentation, the creator recognizes that their entries are incompatible with the kinds of routes that OSM enters, and they remove them. However, it does happen that creators do not understand our conventions, or adamantly retain the data in our map when they do not belong. When this happens, those data eventually get removed by others.

I am doing my very best to understand many things about these routes: who owns the data, whether or not the route is signed-on-the-ground, why their data structures as entered in OSM are so complex (and indeed duplicate existing routes, largely if not completely representing the same intent to "circle Lake Michigan"), et cetera. I do this to understand how they might (or might not) be consistent with how OSM has entered bicycle routes in the USA for many years. If you are able to answer these questions (the Page and this Discussion have not helped very much), I and other Contributors to our project can better determine what might be better done with these data. As they were yesterday before I did my best to edit them into consistency and sensibility, they were not (consistent with how OSM enters bicycle routes). As they are today (after yesterday's edits), they are better (imo), but there is so much I don't understand about them (for example, why they would be "upside down:" national routes being buried three- and four-levels deep in a regional route), I and my fellow mappers cannot make sense of what they are trying to do. Please help us better understand their source/authorship, why they seem so needlessly complex and whether they are government-sponsored (e.g. by a county tourism board promoting bicycle tourism in the area) or are simply "a good bike ride." If the latter, they will correctly be removed from OSM by well-established wide consensus that such route data do not belong in icn-, ncn-, rcn- or lcn-valued network-tagged bicycle routes. Stevea (talk) 13:12, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Decision to redact

After visiting the website, watching the three-minute video, looking at the photos, downloading the KML file and loading it into JOSM (finding a lot of overlap with USBRs 10, 35 and 36) and scouring the Internet for further resources, this route appears to be little more than two men named Peter and Nate who went on a bike ride in 2014, then published their route data. I believe the (highly complex, needlessly complex) route data that are now in OSM (despite my attempt at simplification yesterday) represent no more than that: "a good bike ride." Another perfectly valid reason to remove them is that they have no clear provenance of permission granted to enter them into OSM. Therefore, I propose these data be removed from OSM.

Where these data overlap with truly established bicycle routes (including, but not limited to USBR 10, 35 and 36), OSM clearly doesn't lose any data for cyclists looking for a good route as these data are removed. However, in those places where child relations do not overlap with major (national/ncn) routes, there may be data which are either valuable (to some users, but likely shouldn't be in OSM) or are valid to remain in OSM. (For example, Buffalo Ridge Trail, Oak Leaf Trail, Ozaukee Interurban Trail, Root River Pathway, Sheboygan Interurban Trails). However, it appears that all of the route relations which are named with "LMCT" are route data which do not belong in OSM. I welcome additional discussion. Stevea (talk) 17:01, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Deleted

This route was deleted in changeset/72484354.

DeciIon to redact.

Stevea has decided, apparently on his own, to redact a classic bicycle ride taken by many riders over many years. Were he to do further investigation he would find local cycling groups like Chainlink.org where riders have chronicled their rides. Indeed just this year after leaving office Mayor Rahm Emanuel celebrated his hard work as mayor of Chicago by doing the Lake Michigan circle. Stevea should reconsider his decision. Unsigned comment by Wegerje 13:39, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that I have decided this "apparently on (my) own." There are many years of consensus in OSM that we don't enter "bicycle rides" as route=bicycle relations, we enter "bicycle routes" as route=bicycle relations. I truly offered days of conversation, opportunities to rebut, asked many questions many times for evidence to be provided, all with little or no results. When I did the research on my own and found that "this route relation entry is not only needlessly complex (and that can't be or isn't explained), it also seems little more than a couple of guys who rode a bicycle route" I redacted the route, especially as my questions were not answered here.

If there is ANY evidence of this being little more than "a bicycle ride" (really? that Rahm Emanual rode it? THAT is your good reasoning to enter a bike ride as a bike route?) I ask you to provide it here. Links to press articles, web sites, offical state or county data that this is a sponsored, government or signed route, ANYthing besides dead links (as is Chainlink, try it: even after you click the difficult-to-see Welcome link you go nowhere) I would be happy to "reconsider (my) decision." But without that, I and the rest of OSM have no reason to do so, especially with the due diligence and patience I have and do extend here and now. I'm not doing this to be mean-spirited (I'm no such thing), I'm doing it because we (OSM) have absolutely no evidence that this isn't anything besides "a good bike ride." (And OSM doesn't add those to its database). Show me something otherwise and I'll be happy to reconsider. You want to "chronicle a (bike) ride?" As I've mentioned before here, use a site like RideWithGPS, that's what they are for. In fact, try clicking that link to find these exact data already on the Internet. Again, these "bike ride" data don't belong in OSM as "bike route" data. Those are for official, usually government routes (exceptions include the quasi-national routes that have emerged over many years with national-level consensus — these are signed). An important issue that remains unaddressed: who owns these route data? Stevea (talk) 22:01, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Recreated

Two new relations (LMCT and LMCT-Alt) were created according to OSM conventions. These may still have minor errors (please check them), but they are much better than the bizarre collection of dozens of route relations from earlier. We still do not have data on the source of these and they might be redacted if we do not obtain the source of the data to establish provenance for determination of whther they are compatible with OSM's Open Database License. Stevea (talk) 07:18, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

These should probably be deleted. At least the parts sourced from bikelakemichigan.com doesn't represent anything "official" and the given route is simple one of many possible routings one could take around the lake. --Popball (talk) 08:57, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, Popball, nice to see you in OSM (and its wiki) again. (We bumped into each other during a vote on something, I'd have to scour things to find that, but I do recognize your username). In my contacts with knowledgable people (one in Michigan and considered an "architect" of the USBRS) about bicycle routing in that state, the USA, and how (best, with both "official" knowledge and in an "OSM consensus" sense) to effect accurate bicycle routing in the USA in OSM, wide consensus is that sometime around 2014, these (GLCT) routes (which, importantly, ARE signed) began to "wither," for lack of administration, management and further development by the participating governments / agencies / transportation departments (some in the USA, some in Canada). They don't seem to have been officially abandoned, in which case I would agree with you that they be formally redacted from OSM. However, they were or are signed, that hasn't gone away, even if no additional "maintainance" of them continues since that "circa 2014" date when things like the volunteer groups, their website(s) and official government agreements to allow signage and (tourism, marketing) promotion of these routes seem to have significantly fallen off. The bikelakemichigan.com route data themselves, while they might not be actively supported by MDOT, do seem to have a "life" which persists presently, and at one time did include the imprimature of "officialdom," even if that is difficult to determine today: it may exist, it may not. But I'd prefer not to guess at this, and absent anything concrete, you saying "should probably be deleted" doesn't seem it rests upon a firm foundation to actually say that. I respect your opinion about this, but not your position (unless you were to offer stronger evidence to support it). Thank you for "discovering" this almost-forgotten corner of bike routing in the USA and saying something about it: it's good to see another voice in this relative wikderness. But because the routes are believed to remain signed upon the ground, and do seem to have proponents sufficient to maintain websites about the route data, I'm inclined to keep the route data in OSM. You'll note I haven't expanded these to include ALL of the GLCT routes (mostly for lack of data), but also largely because there appears to be little or no actual proponents of them, whether volunteer groups or governmental imprimature of the routes themselves, even if those ARE signed on other "Lake" routes. If that changes, we might expand them in OSM as I allude to in United States/Bicycle Networks, but that hasn't happened yet, even as it still could. Stevea (talk) 09:41, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

At least in Milwaukee, I've never seen any signage for a bicycle version of the LMCT (and I've biked alongside along these corridors quite a bit). On the other hand, the driving route is fairly well signed (although according to [1] even the road signage is spotty in places). In addition, I haven't been able to find any route markers for the bike route via bing streetside (I've only checked Wisconsin, maybe they exist in Michigan, but I'm sceptical), and I haven't been able to find any information from any DOT or State tourism board about the route.

As @Wegerje: said above, he used http://bikelakemichigan.com/ as his primary source, and I agree that this is just the route that two guys took around the lake (and the route map available there even includes some of their selfies at a couple landmarks :D) --Popball (talk) 12:16, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough (and I guessed you know Milwaukee well based on your edit History) that you haven't seen any "route markers for the bike route" (I don't know that it differs from the road route of the same name), although you do say you are using digital media (Bing streetside) rather than "on the ground" evidence. Me too, as I'm in California, although I was born in Michigan, and Michigan is where my ACA-volunteer who is the "architect" of the USBRS is located, and much of any additional, non-digital info I have about these routes is from him (Kerry, and his MDOT contacts and four-plus-decade-long history of "bike route management" — of a pretty august and maybe even famous nature) in Michigan and all over the USA (ACA is well-known for that). I also have a contact in ACA on its board of directors I can ask about this...even though she (Jenn) is Oregon-based, she's very resourceful and can find out stuff about routes / networks like this; I'll ask her later today. Just last month she told me of an old book about the Mississippi River Trail I'm now on the hunt for at an out-of-print bookstore I know. Kerry also has a "rolodex ten miles long" he might tap into for more recent info about this, and he's "more local" (to the Great Lakes area). It may be that these data eventually migrate to OpenHistoricalMap ("layer" of OSM) instead, that might make more sense if it goes there. Thanks for the good dialog, Alex! More later as I learn what I can about these GLCT routes (as of 2022, it's been a while and this gets dredged up every few years since about 2014, if I recall correctly). Stevea (talk) 12:31, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Gentlemen I apologize that my naive efforts have resulted in so much effort to undo. I assume I assumed that following a simple hierarchy one could delete the relationships at each level without having to remove the relationship connection from each element. I am not any kind of serious cyclist and should not have attempted to create a useful guide for cycling around Lake Michigan. I have no dog in this pony show race. Is there anything you would want me to do at this time to help clean this up. (FWIW I am quite familiar with JOSM) Or I am happy to step aside and let you all continue to take care of it. Wegerje (talk) 12:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Yet again, thank you for chiming in, Wegerje, as well as your helpful spirit and offer to help. If you know of any "on the ground" evidence (e.g. a bicycle-specific sign for LMCT that is fairly recent) OR of any state/provincial administration (MDOT, WiDot, MnDOT...) that continues to publish anything resembling "ongoing management or maintenance" of any GLCT route, that would be a helpful pointer. In the meantime, I'm going to ask Jenn (she may not get back to me until into this coming week) if she knows anything "fresh and recent" about this — above and beyond since we last spoke about it (years ago?). Your efforts to enter these data into OSM should certainly not be deprecated as "should not have..." as I think there has been and is nothing but good intentions here. What I think we best do is "channel the intentions of reality" into OSM as best we can, and it appears we're "banging on all eight cylinders" (heh, I AM a Michigander) to find out what we can "today." Good collaboration! Stevea (talk) 13:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

As I suspected as I "recreated" three years ago, these ARE "a thing." They are a scenic network of roads, can be bicycled, and are somewhat signed (especially in Wisconsin), poorly signed and unsigned in various states and possibly provinces of Canada. This "resurrects" the Page (not here in the Discussion). Alex, it looks like all five of these still have a green light to enter OSM: see https://lakemichigandestinations.com/circle-tour/the-history-of-the-official-lake-michigan-circle-tour/ and the many links and wikipedia articles. This route was "designated in 1988 and signed in 1998" (says Kerry Irons, Adventure Cycling Association), so I consider it "real" enough to be in OSM. See you in the Page. Stevea (talk) 00:21, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I think there is a bit of confusion :) The links you've given reference the GLCT. These are already entered in OSM (see https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5377996 and https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/4744198 for example) Importantly, they cannot be done by bike, as they include significant portions along freeways. --Popball (talk) 10:07, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

OK, there are at least two (maybe three) things going on here. I mention "GLCT" as a group of five routes, each of which encircle one of the five Great Lakes. You linked the Wisconsin portion of LMCT (a ROAD route encircling a single Lake) and the entirety (super-relation / super-route ROAD route) of the Lake Erie Circle Tour. What I linked earlier is my re-creation, the "son of" (more sensible / meets-OSM-route-relation-conventions better than Wegerje's) LMCT, a route specifically denoted as a BICYCLE route, and its LMCT-Alternate (some spurs). It may very well be possible that LMCT's bicycle route is also suitable as a road route, I don't know that, but it's possible, even highly likely. As you suggest, the converse (the Lake Erie route being a road route and having freeway portions is NOT going to be suitable for a bicycle route) will NOT be true. So, we'll need to figure out if LMCT is both bicycle AND road. We'll also need to figure out if LECT has a bicycle route ALSO. And we'll likely need to figure out if the additional states' (besides Wisconsin, which you link) road routes for LMCT have different elements for their road routes than the existing LMCT bicycle route. Whew! One piece at a time, I think we can tease all of this apart, see what we have, see what we need (to still enter into OSM) and differentiate between ALL of the "there is a bicycle route, is it a road route, too?" and "there is a road route, is there ALSO a bicycle route, too?" questions. For example, I only recently learned that Great Lakes Seaway Tour actually should be part of the GLCT network (and the Quasi-national section of our wiki says so), as it "closes an otherwise gap." We are getting closer, I'm "stroking my chin" (thinking about this) as well as typing all this so others can agree, disagre or add more data. Incremental progress is still progress! Stevea (talk) 10:26, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I created a new wiki page for the road (non-cycling) routes: Great_Lakes/Circle_Tour. It appears some of them are mapped, some not. So feel free to discuss the road routes there. --Popball (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

This is excellent and just what we need right now. I'm modifying this and perhaps improving it going forward. Thank you! Stevea (talk) 18:39, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

What it looks like happened, is four years ago Wegerje um, "sketched" these data into OSM, I winked those out of existence, winked them back into existence as they "better in my mind follow OSM conventions for bicycle routes like this" and "called it regional" (which isn't totally wrong and even has some precedent, as I did this with ACA route segments, which shouldn't have even been in OSM to begin with, as they are proprietary data, yet other OSM volunteers entered them as GPX routes establshing legal nexus to enter these, so "we had to call them something"). As USBRs were also simultaneously emerging (as ncn) distinguishing these with rcn (hey, it was 2013 or so, that made excellent sense at the time and it still does), that works. Me calling originally-Wegerje-entered LMCT network=rcn three years ago, then Alex "tickled the subject alive" more-or-less "woke things up" to where we are now. Maybe Wegerje or others utter into here or OSM more route data for other routes, maybe it's simply "hey, I saw a LMCT sign..." (or other GLCT sign) and more of us in OSM nod our heads. Either way, the truth of this network of routes (maybe route=bicycle, maybe route=road with bicycle=yes) is "here and established in OSM" (now, as of 2022-Q4). So, Wegerje, sometimes things take four years before they "wake up again to be as alive as they were three years ago," and Alex, sometimes "you poke something to see if it's asleep and it wakes up." Or something like that. I'm going to give Jenn perhaps a week or two to answer me if she might, we might learn even more. Fun to watch the gears turn, here! Stevea (talk) 00:58, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

@Stevea:, have you heard anything back from your contact about the existence of this route? --Popball (talk) 23:45, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes (well, partially and "tangentially"), thanks for asking. Kerry Irons (super-volunteer with Adventure Cycling Association and essentially the "architect" of the USBRS) said two things about this: 1): "LMCT is completely separate from the USBRS and I wouldn't be surprised if those supporting the LMCT have no idea of the existence of the USBRS. USBR 37 in IL (from the Loop in Chicago north to the WI state line) is completely independent of USBR 37 in IN. Once we get USBR 37 in Indiana then we'll work with both IN and IL to co-designate USBR 36 and USBR 37 through IN and IL." And, 2): "Around Lake Michigan there are USBR 35 and USBR 10 in Michigan, USBR 36 in Indiana and Illinois, and USBR 37 in Illinois. We (ACA, DOTs and AASHTO) are hopefully about to start on getting USBR 37 designated in Wisconsin and if that happens, Michigan has committed to completing USBR 37 to connect with USBR 10. This would make a USBR route all the way around Lake Michigan. Parts of it would be the same as the LMCT." My continuing research doesn't do any better than the improvements either in or linked in our Great_Lakes/Circle_Tour wiki, which effectively supplants this page (now becoming historic and largely archived). Jenn Hamelman (ACA's USBRS Program Manager) also wrote me to say she didn't have anything more specific to add beyond what Kerry has said among the three of us, and added "I do appreciate your extensive efforts across the board for the USBRS and the cycling world within OSM." What OSM really needs now (as reflected in the status noted at Great_Lakes/Circle_Tour) is definitive / authoritative route data for 4 of the 5 bicycle routes (LMCT is done) and 2 of the 5 road routes. As that wiki denotes, the road routes in the GLCT network are about 65% done and the bicycle routes in the GLCT network are at least 20% done. Without that authoritative route data — especially whether bicycle-specific routes exist for those other 4 bicycle routes — and because of the "problematic" nature and "poorly detailed" aspects of the Wikipedia route specifications (noted in that wiki) for even some of the road routes (like LHCT), OSM will struggle to enter better data on these, beyond what is already entered. The bottom line is that OSM will need to continue research into finding (and entering) definitive / authoritative route data (especially on 4 of the 5 bicycle routes, and whether these even ARE bicycle-friendly routes). I have reasonable expectations that the 65% for road routes can eventually grow to 100% completion, but the 20% completion of the bicycle routes (only LMCT / LMCT-Alt being completed — nothing "bicycle" is known about the other 4) may be stuck if further route data remain stubbornly unknown. Big thanks to you, Popball, for the creation of that wiki page (which I believe is now fleshed-out and up-to-date right now) and especially Wegerje for the great collaboration on all of this. Stevea (talk) 00:03, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

@Stevea: Okay, that is what I thought. Thanks for following up. It seems clear at this point that (LMCT and LMCT-Alt) truely are just "good bike rides" (as you've said 3 years ago), but shouldn't be routes in the OSM sense. (Although I'm optimistic about the USBR routes which should circumnavigate Lake Michigan some day!) --Popball (talk) 11:25, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, not so fast. I've concluded LMCT is a "real" route, not what I initially surmised that it is "a good ride." It is signed, there were (and are?) substantial efforts among various governments (state, provincial...) and likely things like Chambers of Commerce and/or county tourism bureaus which were boosters for this route / these routes, there are Wikipedia articles and websites dedicated to their history, there are plenty of people (including Kerry, who I consider authoritative and is local to Michigan) who assert these routes are "real," although possibly fading into history and/or obscurity (but that hasn't quite happened fully or yet). So it isn't "simply a good ride," and it should remain in OSM. In fact, I look (OSM looks) to expand the network beyond the single LMCT route for bicycles and the three fully-entered (and other two partially entered) as road routes. This is why this wiki page is effectively deprecating in favor of our Great Lakes/Circle Tour wiki, which tracks both road routes and bicycle routes in this network in two tables. Stevea (talk) 19:59, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@Stevea: Sorry for the miscommunication :D The two links you provided asserting the existance of the route ([2] and Great_Lakes_Circle_Tour) both refer to the road route. Neither has any mention of a bicycle as far as I can see. It also appears that Kerry was refering to the road route (I think?) Is there something I missed? (p.s. feel free to copy this discussion to the talk page of Great_Lakes/Circle_Tour if you'd like to consolodate discussion there) --Popball (talk) 21:20, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

To go forwards in time (beyond 2022-Q4), see Great_Lakes/Circle_Tour. This wiki here has been a great collaboration between Wegerje, Popball, Stevea and continues with others, tracked in that wiki as the GLCT network improves in OSM. Stevea (talk) 21:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)