This whole area is like the swirling vortex of dirt where all the carpet sweepings of bad landuse/landcover/confusion come to live (and hopefully one day, die).

Anything you can do to improve is helpful!

If it's dry, it's dry. You are welcome to delete it if it really isn't there any longer.

This is a subtle point that doesn't get a lot of visibility by way of example: a route=light_rail relation can be (semantically considered) EITHER an "infrastructure" route (like a route=railway relation we have the middle-to-later stages of here) OR a light_rail "open to passengers" route. The difference is twofold: in both the contents of the relation and in the tags on the relation.

For infrastructure (light_rail), "bare naked" ways with railway=light_rail tags are the only members (no stations, stops, platforms...) and the tags don't mention "passenger oriented" things (like public_transit:version=1 or 2).

For passenger light rail, it's either a fully PTv1- or PTv2-style route with not only OTHER tags on the route (like from=*, to=*, via=*, colour=*, and ref=* (not an exhaustive list, you get the idea), but it ALSO has members that are tagged with "stop" and "platform" (in PTv2) roles in addition to all the ways that make up the "line" of the route. And (again, for PTv2), there is a route_master relation that ties together a "one direction, the other direction" into a "whole" route.

Continue "sketching" this route to reflect reality (it's looking good so far) to follow "construction" (of infrastructure), "testing" (of vehicles, which at least in my mind means no longer under construction), electrified=* tags, and then as signals, systems and other stuff happens to get closer to ribbon cutting for the public, grow it into a route=light_rail line that doesn't (quite) mean simply "infrastructure only," but rather approaches PTv1 (or PTv2 if you are ambitious and make the jump to it all at once with a route_master) without QUITE going there. Like, keep on the opening_date tag (in the future) or keep on the tags you have now:

type=construction
construction=light_rail
opening_date=2023

Beef this up to be fully PTv1 (or PTv2) while leaving those tags on. Then, on opening day / ribbon cutting / revenue service opens to the public, make these:

type=route
route=light_rail

(delete construction and opening_date).

Sorry for the length.

Let's do it again! (Somewhere else, it's fun to build passenger rail in OSM).

There remain 53 ways at both "ends" of the route which remain tagged railway=construction + construction=light_rail. As these are "no longer under construction," correct is to remove the construction(=light_rail) tag and to make the railway tag become railway=light_rail (not rail).

Some minor eraser crumbs to blow away, we had here today, not terrible.

Choo, choo, everybody. Nice to be mapping around here with you.

Also, I'm seeing news reports from a few days ago that say you've got live wires there now, so all electrified tags should be updated.

Congratulations OSM, Washington, Sound Transit...many: I think we largely give birth to a "light_rail route in place" here.

Sure, maybe some bumps and rocks forward in our tagging, but I think it is clear to many the tagging path ahead. If not, ask someone. Maybe on the Washington/Railroads Discussion / Talk wiki page.

And, look, Clay is 100% correct, nobody is ginning up a passenger light_rail route right now, this is infrastructure OSM denotes. A bit of lifecycle pangs (I also agree, no need for lifecycle prefix, here and now) and noting that there is a plethora of construction tagging, including on the route=light_rail (of infrastructure) itself — some ways are tagged construction=light_rail, some are tagged construction:railway=light_rail (whew!)

So, propagate the opening_date=2023 tag from the 11 ways where it now exists to "all 74 of them" (the other 63). And, Bob's your uncle.

OK: what I did:

I found 74 ways tagged largely railway=rail and tagged them all with railway=light_rail .

What I suggest others do is to put opening_date=2023 on the ways where it doesn't exist - most of them, like 11 out of 74 have this, the other 63 don't.

And be happy. Let the tags reflect reality as best you / we can, it's all good.

I ask quickly here because it feels "local:" I see at least one opening_date=2023 tag (no more specific than "next year"). Are people OK with the "whole of it" (light_rail infrastructure) getting that tag?

As I examine tags on the infrastructure, they're pretty complicated and I want to "not stomp on anything that is reflected in its tagging to be representative of reality."

Make that 15 minutes an hour. I'm pondering these data deeply.

I think it's clear to everybody (maybe not) that rail ≠ road, as far as access is concerned.

A rail bridge, I think we can remove a construction tag if there are test vehicles checking welds and such.

A road bridge, I think we could do that, too, but it does seem like because of its public nature, access tags are much more important. The opening_date tag data (if a value is known) is helpful here.

OK, I see what happened: these rail data were entered as railway=rail to begin with, rather than railway=light_rail, which everybody seems to agree the latter is the correct tag for the whole of these rail.

To way/922298053 I've set tags as I believe are correct for the whole.

Gimme a few (10-15) minutes and I'll apply these tags to the entirety of the infrastructure (as I see it, but I think I'm getting it right).

I'll leave on the construction tags, (except that one way I just mentioned at Spring District) and then all anybody needs to do going forward is simply delete the construction tag.

The railway key, not the rail key.

If it isn't clear, my notation of

construction=(empty)

means "no construction tag whatsoever."

OK, I think I see what's correct here, though I listen. "Where true," (where there are active light_rail cars being tested) delete the construction=light_rail tag and change the rail key from a value of construction to a value of light_rail.

So:
construction=(empty)
railway=light_rail

where true in the real world.

Sketching in stations, stops, etc...in the future as they evolve. This one is getting built in real-time, that's OK.

To wrap it up, for any given segment of rail in OSM where traffic is seen on the line, remove its construction tags (no longer railway=construction + construction=light_rail, rather simply railway=light_rail.

This is NOT the same as OSM denoting this is open for passenger service, it simply means "no longer under construction." When vehicles are being tested upon it, that's no longer construction (and Nat is correct that for safety, it'd be "more correct" to denote it as "active" rail). Not quite yet passenger rail, but no longer under construction either.

As you know an opening_date, add that tag with a good value. As you further build the "simply bare naked rail" line of infrastructure into something closer to a passenger line, include stations, stops and so on. That's what makes it a passenger route. You might 'ease in" to that by going to a PTv1 flavor light_rail, or go all the way up to PTv2 all at once. I'd do it in stages (v1, then v2), but that's just me. It IS helpful to learn how to build good v2 routes, even if you go "through" v1 to do so.

If I were to look for a parallel, I'd say this Bellevue-Redmond-area line is somewhere about 6 to 9 months ahead of where something like the Redlands line is going (somewhere in 2022, maybe 2023): "emerging local passenger rail" of a light-rail nature. Our wiki and map more-or-less capture this, but it's all rough. What is built in OSM can be used from OSM.

All that is being "said so" here is whether there is rail. Nothing is said of passenger service or open-to-public as something-else.

Testing of infrastructure happens. If there are test vehicles upon the rail, remove any construction tag. A route relation for passengers is in the future as of now. Theis is "alpha test of welds for structural integrity, safety and signals/switches" stuff, done with an un-humaned robot car with cameras going slow, I'd guess. So take off any proposed tag on that (those) element(s) of railway=rail.

This seems like it is whether a single railway element has a construction tag or not. Somebody said, "there is this kind of railway here." One segment at a time, it is or isn't construction=*. Say so. Leave on the tag, take off the tag. Up to you locally. One tag at a time, if you have to. Vehicles on it? In an "early test," yeah, new track has to have vehicles upon it for the first time someday.