[Talk-us-massachusetts] Living Streets in Massachusetts

[Peter Dobratz]

Alan,

Generally, there are no street in the USA that should be tagged
highway=living_street.  Some people may be incorrectly interpreting this
generally as "street where people live"  in which case highway=residential
would be better.  However, most cases of highway=living_street that I've
seen should be better tagged as highway=service and service=driveway.

The idea behind living_streets originated in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
The concept has spread throughout Europe, but I don't believe it exists in
the USA.  The idea is that you are creating a street where the cars go slow
enough for children to play (3 mph or "walking speed").  When you drive on
such a road, it feels like you are driving on a sidewalk and there are
often various traffic calming measures built in to the street to encourage
extremely slow speed.

Generally residential streets having speed limits of 20 to 30 mph and
people are expected to walk only on the side of the road.  Even in
driveways and parking lots, people are expected to watch out for cars
driving through.  On highway=living_street, cars are supposed to always
watch out for pedestrians (think children playing ball in the street).  In
the USA, it's generally no legal for pedestrians to freely roam the streets.

For streets generally closed to vehicular traffic, use highway=pedestrian
(think pedestrian zones of college campuses where service and delivery
vehicles occasionally go).

Peter

On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 5:29 AM, Alan & Ruth Bragg <alan.ruth.bragg at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Turbo overpass query (type:way and highway=living_street in Massachusetts)
> returned 58 occurrences.
>
> Maybe some in this image <https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wnk7TUmBBYNfRPgG2> are
> in your area.
>
> I suppose some of these at Gordon Theological Seminary
> <https://photos.app.goo.gl/KPnVEN20ZN6Mqok42> might fit the description
> at  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dliving_street
> <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dliving_street>  Note
> that there is no entry for the USA in the table of countries.
>
> What's your opinion on living streets?
>
>
> Alan
>
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