[OSM-newbies] Tagging for service areas

[ael]

Mark Williams wrote:
> ael wrote:
>> Mark Williams wrote:
>>> ael wrote:
>>>> Several residential areas that I have been mapping have quite large
>>>> "squares" - typically surfaced polygonal areas enclosed by housing
>>>> providing access to garages, back gardens, rear entrances and the like.
>>>> They usually have a single access road which I usually mark with
>>>> highway=service, as the best approximation. It is not clear that
>>>> highway=residential is not equally appropriate, but I tend to reserve
>>>> that for the usually wider roads giving access to the front doors.
>>>>
>>>> My problem is how to tag these areas. What I have done usually is mark
>>>> the outlines as highway=service and then add area=yes. According to the
>>>> wiki, "service" cannot be an area, so this is formally wrong as things
>>>> stand. And osmarender just shows a looping service road as you would expect.
>>>>
>>>> How should I tag these areas? Is there something better that what I am
>>>> doing? If not, should "service" allow an area tag with the renderers
>>>> doing something better?
>>>>
>>>> ael
>>>>
>>> Round my way these are mostly used as parking, and get tagged as such
>>> (but no node). That's not really right either, of course, and I get the
>>> impression it's not true of your areas?
>> No: meaning that there is only an occasional parked car in most cases.
>> And I think residents would be pretty annoyed if anyone except their own
>> visitors parked there except in exceptional circumstances, so I think
>> marking them as "parking" would be seriously misleading and irritate the
>> locals - with some justification. We don't want osm to get a bad
>> reputation :-) It is possible that these are actually private areas, but
>> I don't have any information on that.
>>
>> ael
>>
>>
> By UK rules, unless a road is private or marked with legal parking
> restrictions, then anyone _is_ allowed to park there. Mostly to park for
> any time in some of our our local estates would be a bad idea ;(. I
> don't add the node as currently this avoids a big 'P' in it. If your
> areas don't include parked cars, then my model isn't going to be useful
> for you!
> 
> I don't mark restricted areas in this way, even with an access tag, for
> just your reason.

Agreed, but I worried about sat-nav applications now or in the future
using osm data and directing people to such areas.

> PS this went off-list - not intentional on my part.

Probably my fault: I am used to lists which reply-to set to list. (Yes I
know there are two camps with exactly opposite views of the "right" way
to set this.)

ael