[Talk-GB] Hanway Street - London - highway=residential or highway=service

[Paul Berry]

I'd go as far as to say it's the default street layout for most of the old
terraced housing in the UK! It's especially prevalent in the gridiron
planning in northern towns and cities: thousands upon thousands of streets
are laid out like that, and their back lanes are marked as highway=service,
sometimes further qualified as service=alley if they're too narrow to drive
a vehicle down.

But, to get back to the point, it's sometimes a close call between
highway=residental, lanes=1 and highway=service, especially if it's narrow
- if it has buildings fronting it, as opposed to backing onto it, I'd
default to residential.

As to what they're called, well good luck with that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alley#United_Kingdom

Regards,
*Paul*

On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 at 10:26, Chris Hodges <chris at c-hodges.co.uk> wrote:

> I've had one of those in Bristol, behind 30s terraces. They joined up
> between a few streets except where overgrown of otherwise blocked. Wide
> enough to drive down, maybe to drive past a parked car, access to garages.
> Certainly called an alley locally. "Track" would describe the surface quite
> well, if not the use or layout.
>
> But "alley" can also refer to something too narrow to drive down - a.k.a.
> "ginnel" up north
>
> Sent from BlueMail <http://www.bluemail.me/r?b=16470>
> On 12 Feb 2021, at 10:05, Edward Catmur via Talk-GB <
> talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>>
>> They're all over the south east; I think they were popular during the
>> suburban boom of the 1930s. Typically (at least in south London) they're
>> rather less well manicured than your example (which has an engineered
>> surface, a defined verge, and even street lighting). An example that I
>> would definitely describe as an alley (and has been tagged highway=service
>> service=alley) is  https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/61299961 (visual:
>> https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=51.37357~-0.243965&lvl=17&dir=358.246&style=x&v=2&sV=1)
>> - just wide enough for 1 car, with a solid but unsealed surface, giving
>> access to back gardens. In some other parts of London they've been mapped
>> as highway=track e.g.  https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/525334642 which
>> I don't feel is quite correct.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 9:18 AM Nick Whitelegg via Talk-GB <
>> talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Indeed - 'Alley' I think is one of those words with different UK and US
>>> usage.
>>>
>>> In the UK I take it to mean a narrow concrete path between buildings.
>>>
>>> In the US I take it to mean what is under discussion here: a service
>>> road that cuts through a block, with houses backing onto it from both
>>> sides, and running parallel to streets either side. There are actually a
>>> few examples of these in the UK, this springs to mind (between Ludlow Road
>>> and Manor Road North), I would use highway=service for this:
>>>
>>> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/50.90403/-1.36846
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From:* Stephen Colebourne <scolebourne at joda.org>
>>> *Sent:* 12 February 2021 08:17
>>> *To:* Talk Gb <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-GB] Hanway Street - London - highway=residential
>>> or highway=service
>>>
>>> None of those four examples look like alleys to me. But this may be a
>>> cultural issue - when I've visited the US I've seen streets called
>>> alleys that are not dissimilar:
>>>
>>> https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@42.3498528,-71.0882683,3a,75y,60.23h,70.78t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sGvRaWcdOwGdQ02UHEt0Yug!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DGvRaWcdOwGdQ02UHEt0Yug%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D256.35754%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
>>>
>>> Stephen
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 at 06:14, Mateusz Konieczny via Talk-GB
>>> <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:service%3Dalley has
>>> ongoing topic of what
>>> > qualifies as highway=residential and what qualifies as highway=service
>>> service=alley
>>> >
>>> > Hanway Street was given as highway=service example, then removed as an
>>> example
>>> > - with following photo
>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Hanway_Street_-_London.JPG
>>> >
>>> > To me it looks like a narrow highway=residential but right now it is
>>> mapped as
>>> > highway=service, see https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/233334347
>>> > (and was mapped as such for basically all its existence).
>>> >
>>> > Photo looks like something that I would definitely consider as narrow
>>> highway=residential,
>>> > and has tagged such roads in my city as highway=residential + lanes=1
>>> >
>>> > What is your opinion? Is it highway=service service=alley or narrow
>>> highway=residential?
>>> > Should it be changed in OSM?
>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>>
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