[Tagging] Proposal - Median strip

[Greg Troxel]

Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> writes:

> On 14/2/25 08:07, Manuel Binias wrote:
>> Am Donnerstag, 13. Februar 2025, 20:58:03 CET schrieb Snusmumriken via
>> Tagging:
>>> On Thu, 2025-02-13 at 18:23 +0100, Manuel Binias wrote:
>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal:Median_strip

First, if you aren't supposed to drive on it, it should not be highway=*
at all.  Programs that interpret OSM data should be able to use a less
complex understanding and not be really wrong.  I mean that highway=foo
is something you can drive on, in general.
>
> The description of 'median strip' looks to be too restrictive.
> To me a 'median strip' separates opposing lanes of traffic by some
> distance?

In en_US, it does imply significant separation, and often physical.

One example is a Interstate highway (motorway) where there will often be
10m or so of grass/brush/trees, often with guard rails.

Another is a 1m strip of grass, 20cm above the level of the pavement,
with curbing on both sides.

As for linear vs area, the point of linear features is to abstract
something that is used linearly, to have a simplified but usable
representation.  You can't drive down a road which is phsyically a
(zero-width) line, but we say that a line feature with a width tag (or
implied) is usable.  That's fine.

But these median objects are two things:

  perhaps, some kind of barrier, which is mappable as a linear feature,
  according to tags that are already established.

  an area whose purpose is to cause separation, and in which driving is
  not allowed, separately from whether it is physically protected.

I think it makes sense to have area as the preferred tag.

In the case where there's a sort-of-lane that is just painted for not allowed, I
could see the same sort of line representation as real lanes, but then
it isn't really highway= but some kind of not-lane, because "lane"
implies usability.