This is my preferred method of mapping a street’s evolution, but the lack of a designated method does create some issues though.
A while ago, I mapped a bunch of streets in my area that went through several stages before the current one. Usually, the evolution is path/track with a name → became a proper street with a new name → sometimes another change or two (name changes, downgraded in importance over time, etc), so I could end up with two to four versions of the same street one on top of the other.
Unfortunately, a mapper had another way of mapping and recently transformed some of “my” streets to just a line with relations instead. Most of my work is still present in the relations’ tags, but of course don’t appear on the map since they’re just lines and not highway=* anymore.
Here’s an example : Way: 200681018 | OpenHistoricalMap
This is now a line with three of my old streets as relations, although not even as accurate as before since the third one timeline wise now randomly stops in 1970 because the mapper also added a whole lot of landuses based on a map that is actually set in the early-to-mid 1950’s in this area, and I’m pretty sure I mapped a forth version of the street (the current one) that reflected the downgrade in importance when the (not mapped) N90 slightly north became the main transit road in 1975.
So yeah, it kinda sucks that there isn’t a formal way of showing a street’s evolution over time yet.