name for I-5 in North Portland

[Peter Dobratz]

Sometime last year there was an anonymous note saying that the name "Minnesota Freeway" is wrong.  There was some comments concurring with that sentiment, and the note was eventually closed out without changing the data.  In any case, OSM Notes are not really a useful means for having lengthy discussions.

Looking through the history on the Ways that make up I-5 through North Portland, I can find the following names:

Minnesota Freeway

Baldock Freeway

Pacific Highway

Does anyone know what roads these refer to?

Are there any road signs with any of these names?

There are a number of tags to use for various names of objects in OSM:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names

If the "Minnesota Freeway" is a potential former nickname, then we probably want to delete it, and maybe not have the "name" tag at all.  The designation of Interstate 5 is specified in with "ref=I 5" on the Ways and also "ref=5" and "network=US:I" on the route Relations.

I see that user Paul Johnson changed some of the Ways to "Minnesota Freeway" in 2009.  I've reached out to him via changeset comment:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/1958636

Thanks,
Peter

[Cone, Paul]

http://hamell.net/portlands-freeway-names-minnesota-freeway/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Highway_(United_States)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5_in_Oregon#Robert_Hugh_Baldock_Freeway

 

Paul

 

-------------------------------------------

Paul Cone

Corporate GIS

Bureau of Technology Services

City of Portland, Oregon

paul...@portlandoregon.gov

(503) 823-4071

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[roadgeek99]

Nowadays in the Portland area, people simply refer the freeway only as I-5. No other name is used by the public or signed today, but those names were used at some point.

Baldock and Minnesota freeway names were used when they opened, but not anymore. The Minnesota name was carried over from the street it built over, N Minnesota Ave. In this Oregonian article from the 60s, https://twitter.com/pdxhistorian/status/750735059724832769, a group advocated to stop the use of the Minnesota Freeway name as confusing and useless, and to refer the freeway only as I-5. It seems to have succeeded. I would bet something similar happened to the Eastbank and Baldock freeways. They all should be old_name values, with no name tag at all. Keep in mind that these names are still on OSM on all of I-5 in Portland, not just the northern part of town. Also, the Baldock Freeway name is used on I-5 from South Portland all the way to Eugene.

Pacific Highway is a whole different story. That's ODOT's name for I-5 on it's internal highway system. The name traces all the way back for an auto trail in the early 1900s, roughly following the route of I-5. As that name is still used by ODOT (and not by the public), maybe it could be used as a reg_name value for all of I-5, or something better?

I hope this helps.