[OSM-talk] Pedestrian crossings and barriers

[Andy Allan]

On 8/1/07, David Earl <david at frankieandshadow.com> wrote:
> On 01/08/2007 17:55, Alex Mauer wrote:
> > Peter Miller wrote:
> >> To summarise: I will tag highway nodes as follows:
> >>
> >> crossing=zebra
> >> crossing=pelican
> >> crossing=toucan
> >> crossing=pegasus
> >> crossing=lollipop
> >
> > *please* can we come up with something that makes some sort of sense for
> > these?  Animals and candy!?  This is about as international-unfriendly
> > as you can *get*!
>
> Here's what they effectively mean
>
> zebra => pedestrian priority
> pelican => pedestrian signalled
> toucan => cycle/pedestrian segregated signalled
> toucan => cycle/pedestrian shared(they use the same space to cross)
> signalled
> pegasus => cycle/pedestrian/horse segregated signalled
> lollipop => pedestrian supervised (may have signals or not)
>
> (There's also in the UK a thing called a 'puffin' crossing which is
> pedestrian signalled, but with miniature lights on the pole rather than
> a facing 'green man').
>
> These combinations are a bit tedious. If we follow the pattern fro
> restrictions we have elsewhere, we might have
>    crossing=traffic_signals or crossing=uncontrolled
> with
>    pedestrian=no (default is yes if omitted)
>    bicycle=yes (default no)
>    horse=yes (default no)
>    segregated=yes/no (default not known)
>    supervised=yes (default no)
>
> Hence
> zebra:
>    crossing=uncontrolled
> pelican
>    crossing=traffic_signals
>    bicycle=yes
>    segregated=yes
> toucan
>    crossing=traffic_signals
>    bicycle=yes
>    segregated=no
> pegasus
>    crossing=traffic_signals
>    bicycle=yes
>    horse=yes
>    segregated=yes (sometimes no)
> lollipop
>    crossing=traffic_signals (or uncontrolled, as appropriate)
>    supervised=yes
>
> Is this better?

Not as far as I'm concerned, no. It's pretty tedious to tag that way.
(it's pretty tedious to write the rendering rules too, but there's a
fewer number of people affected). If I have 400 toucan crossings to
tag, how do you think I'd prefer to do it?

If someone was to suggest one-tag methods that mollified those who
don't want to learn new words, then I'd prefer that. But in the
interests of treating everyone equally, maybe *nobody* should
understand the values, and ensure that you can't look them up on
wikipedia or in a dictionary?

crossing=blanched (toucan)
crossing=mountaneously (zebra)
crossing=bluestones (pegasus)

Cheers,
Andy

PS your definition of pelican crossing is wrong, it's not for cyclists.
PPS I'm sticking to crossing=toucan, for those who haven't gathered my
point, until someone comes up with something *better*.