[OSM-talk] Left and Right?

[Rory McCann]

robin paulson wrote:
> the problem with this is that 'bus stop' (and canal mooring, etc,) 
> implies a place where the bus stops, which is on the road.
> 
> the fact the bus shelter, or sign, or bench, is some distance off to the 
> side of the road shouldn't matter - the bus itself stops on the road, so 
> the node imo should be part of the way
> 
> if the bus stop is off to the side of the road, i.e. not connected to 
> it, then the bus can't physically get to it, which seems very wrong
> 
> or, consider from the pedestrian's point-of-view:
> it is assumed for all roads except motorways and where explicitly 
> stated, that there is foot=yes access. in which case, the 
> footpath/sidewalk/pavement is therefore part of the way which represents 
> the road; we don't draw  a separate way off to one side, running 
> parallel. the bus stop must be on the footpath for the pedestrian to be 
> able to walk up to it, so again it must be part of the way
> 
> this problem is i think muddled by the fact we represent an area (a 
> road) with a linear object (a way), which theoretically has zero width, 
> so the natural step from this is to say:
> 'the way represents the centre of the road, and the bus stop/canal 
> mooring is not in the centre of the road, it's at the side of the road, 
> so I'll put it to one side of the way'
> 
> as for placing the node to one side of the way in order to get the icon 
> to be placed correctly, this sounds a lot like 'tagging for the renderer'

Part of it depends. In Ireland, bus stops are frequently marked with a 
sign on the path. This post is not on the road, it is on the path. I 
place the node where that post is on the ground (usually using Yahoo 
Imagery and local knowledge). For example here's a bus stop near where I 
used to live: 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.357268&lon=-6.423311&zoom=18&layers=B00FTF 
It's basically on the corner of a few roads.

Remember there are relations for bus routes, they include the bus stops 
and the ways that make up the route. They can be used to figure out 
where a bus will stop.

With regards to house addresses, the Karlsruhe scheme has the (optional) 
"addr:street=*" tag, so you can associate those addresses with a street. 
I always use this. This is independent from left/right.

Rory