Hi MxxCon, thanks for your feedback. I understand your concerns about presentness and clutter from non-existing features. It's completely fair to treat proposed-lifecycle elements with skepticism.

When publishing this, I considered community discussions about proposed-lifecycle elements from the OSM Wiki. While consensus isn't yet clear, one suggested approach was to only allow these elements in exceptional circumstances.

I felt that the Hudson River Tunnel project qualifies as exceptional. It has verifiable sources lending to its momentum and credibility: public documentation, brownfields with ownership signage, regulatory approval of environmental impact reports, and evolving press coverage. I've tried to add this context to every element. The urgency of this project to replace the degrading North Tunnels adds even more relevance.

While I agree that OSM should strive for data that is ground verifiable, I think there are some exceptions where proposed elements could enrich OSM's data even before construction begins. This project is one such exception: it can help contextualize developments across different brownfields and make it easier for future mappers to update over time.

If you'd like, we can certainly propose guidelines to the wider OSM community (the Wiki) for properly strict and verifiable uses of proposed-lifecycle elements. I will continue to periodically update these elements as the Hudson River Tunnel progresses!