@ckent @jroper @ajsadauskas they were excluded because existing routes are not “asks”. If someone wanted to construct a route numbering scheme for (or including) existing routes, it might help navigation.

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas Thanks — and yes, agreed absolutely. Canberra’s network is the only one I’ve found so far, that does just that.

So are these route numbers final? All the good numbers have been taken, and aren’t systematic. Surely it’d be better if C4 followed the A4/F4/M4 historically, instead of “C7”, which in turn would be better to use along the M7.

Layout is typically done in radial slices (UK), zones (Aus/EU) or grid (US), with nearby pairs getting subs, eg 4, 40, 44.

@ckent @jroper @ajsadauskas Final, we wish we had that kind of power over government policy. The numbers around Sydney and Parramatta are radially numbered. We don't imagine the walk or bridge links will ever be numbered.

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas Oh no I think I made another wrong assumption — I thought these routes, and the map document, as well as the assigned route numbers, are a proposal by and a creation of WalkSydney?

@ckent @jroper @ajsadauskas well it’s a blog post on the site, but it has no official standing.

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas oh okay I just expect that map to start gaining traction in the long term, unless it’s revised

Route numbers are very hard to “reuse”. Once a particular one has been taken in the landgrab, however unofficially, it’ll gain traction. Somebody might want to simplify and renumber but they’ll be battling with old images shared on social media, people’s memories, etc — you only really get one chance at “simple” or “systematic”

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas hmm I sound very tired and agro in that last post, sorry — what a week

Anyhoo! I can volunteer to do all the numbering if nobody else would like the job.

@ckent @jroper @ajsadauskas I’d happily trade an imperfectly numbered system for the map taking off. I think the numbers around the Sydney and Parramatta centers are reasonable, increasing clockwise. (Obviously inserting lines will mess things up, so you could multiply everything by ten to retain integer route numbers. ) The train lines are numbered arbitrarily and it’s fine, as are the motorways and buses.

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas It probably doesn't look like it to many people, but a lot of thought goes into numbering like that (and then some exceptions get thrown in later, often). Sydney Trains got numbered in a concentric core outward (and then T8, T9, soon T3 got changes). The roads in Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart (and a bit Melbourne) have a directional theme — 4 bisects the middle, 2 & 5 depart diagonally, 6 & 8 take coastal peninsulas, 1 & 3 & 7 & 9 pass through with varying 'detour'

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas England is really the only place that does the "numbered cake slice" idea, aided by or reinforcing the London centrism. But they, like us, try to keep related paths numbered in a related way. For instance, A38 is like an extra A3 but towards the A8 area. Stuff like 11 and 22 should always be a cousin of 1 and 2. This sort of thing matters to few obviously, but the flip-side is more important — someone might follow '22' but then it behaves nothing like '2' 😩

@walk_sydney @jroper @ajsadauskas My impassioned plea is to let anybody with severe inflammatory OCD worry about it and do it just once, all for you, and you'll never notice the difference, but to some it's the world of difference

Change it early and nobody will ever know it happened 😅

It's the same thing out there with wayfinding generally — it never gets attention where it's needed. Signs aren't for locals though. Too often attention gets lavished where it's already clear and unnecessary.