How do I correctly name a road bridge?

Question

How should I tag a named bridge that carries a (differently) named road?

For example, in Newcastle there is a bridge across the Tyne called "Swing Bridge" which carries a tertiary road called "Bridge Street".

The current tagging is just:

highway=tertiary
bridge=yes
name=Swing Bridge

which works, but doesn't record the name of the street. The name of the bridge is useful, as that is how locals would give you directions and is probably what should be rendered on the map, but the street name is also potentially useful - especially when searching.

Do we have any established technique for recording both names?

I'm guessing a similar problem exists for other named bridges and there may be worse case (e.g. I could imagine a named bridge that carrys several different named ways)

Accepted Answer

Bridges can be mapped as areas tagged with the widely-supported man_made=bridge tag. By mapping the bridge and the road as separate objects, each object can carry its own name tag. (There is also the option of mapping the bridge as a relation, but this is rarely necessary.)

If the bridge is not (yet) mapped as a separate object, the bridge:name is commonly used on the road to record the name of the bridge it is running across.

(Best practices have evolved a lot in the decade since this question was asked and there are now well-established solutions. This answer was rewritten in 2021 to reflect these changes.)

Answer 2

3	bridge_name seems to be used quite a bit. permanent link answered 25 Aug '11, 15:43 SomeoneElse ♦ 36.9k●71●370●866 accept rate: 16%

Answer 3

2

The newer solution is "man_made=bridge" and "name=*". This can be nicely visualised in Carto map.

permanent link

answered 01 Jan '21, 16:10

strongwillow
65●7●8●13
accept rate: 0%

1

You're right, I've updated the accepted answer accordingly as it was outdated. Upvoted! :)

(01 Jan '21, 17:40) Tordanik

Answer 4

1	you can create a relation for the bridge, look there: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relations/Proposed/Bridges_and_Tunnels permanent link answered 25 Aug '11, 15:53 moszkva ter 2.1k●22●39●60 accept rate: 17%

Answer 5

1	You also have; alt_name - when alternative name exists (which doesn't fit in one of the tags name above) loc_name - Locally known as permanent link answered 25 Aug '11, 23:51 Sundance 467●5●11 accept rate: 3% reverted 25 Aug '11, 23:52

How do I correctly name a road bridge?

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