In Vancouver, we have a mass transit system known as the SkyTrain. It runs almost entirely above ground with the exception of a few blocks in Downtown Vancouver. On OSM it’s stations are tagged with “subway=yes” and the line itself is tagged “railway=subway” and “bridge=yes”.

This recently resulted in a maps.me user being confused, probably because the application called it a subway when I don’t think anyone here would typically call it that because it hardly runs underground at all.

So that made me wonder, where is the error here:

1. Does our schema need fixing? Should we use “railway=rapid_transit” instead of “railway=subway”?
2. Should map.me and other map consumers just “know” that “railway=subway” and “bridge=yes” is not actually a subway and display accordingly?
3. Should we just use “railway=light_rail” even though it doesn’t really fit the category of light rail?
4. Should users just live with the fact that we call all forms of rapid transit a “subway”?