Busways not rendered on main openstreetmap-carto for years, PRs are ready but not accepted

Nighto · 2023-09-28T09:43:23.127Z

A quick update: there has been a new layer released on openstreetmap.org called “Tracestack Topo”, and this one includes busways rendering. It is now my default layer. I wonder if at some point it will take “Standard” (i.e. Carto) position and be the default layer for osm webite visitors.

[]s

nevw · 2023-09-28T11:23:31.782Z

A bit off topic…
Sadly, type=boundary boundary=forest relations for my countries state forestry boundaries not rendered on the new “Tracestack Topo” layer

SomeoneElse · 2023-09-28T11:54:04.415Z

nevw:

type=boundary boundary=forest relations for my countries state forestry boundaries not rendered

That’s not entirely surprising, for a couple of reasons. One is that there is not much use of that tag yet. Another is that if a style does decide to process them, what does it process them as? When I looked at usage, there was often some other landuse also used. I ended up with this, but that works only because that map style already has a concept of “different tree-covered areas within a larger forestry area” which most other OSM-based maps don’t handle.

(and apologies for continuing the off-topic - happy to continue the discussion elsewhere)

Ewen_Hill · 2024-08-13T12:59:27.638Z

Thanks for posting this @Nighto - It does indeed appear chicken and egg and I have reverted from bus way back to service road for this case. The simplest approach would be to have a standard service road dotted as no access so really no change there then so that busways can be added and there is groundswell for the PRs can gain traction.

Jarek · 2024-08-13T15:13:43.862Z

I would be interested in whether openstreetmap-carto would opt into the Software dispute resolution panel - OpenStreetMap Wiki.

Edited to add: I appreciate that this is a big suggestion, so here’s my rationale.

As I understand it, the dispute is basically:

carto maintainers do not wish to add rendering of highway=busway until most of usages of highway=service for busways are migrated to the new tags
community does not wish to migrate existing usages of highway=service for busways to highway=busway until the new tag is rendered
this is a chicken and egg situation to which I don’t see a possible resolution other than one side being overruled

ezekielf · 2024-08-13T15:43:15.334Z

I think the second half of the sentence might not even be necessary:

Jarek:

carto maintainers do not wish to add rendering of highway=busway ~~until most of usages of highway=service for busways are migrated to the new tags~~

~~I’m somewhat surprise nobody has written~~ an OSM-Carto Controversial Decisions wiki page yet to match iD Controversial Decisions. Edit: It does already exist and the link now redirects.

phodgkin · 2024-08-13T19:40:23.984Z

Jarek:

carto maintainers do not wish to add rendering of highway=busway until most of usages of highway=service for busways are migrated to the new tags

I don’t think this is accurate. The split tagging usage is an issue, but a design concept for highway=busway was recently discussed, without opposition to the basic idea of rendering this tagging. Unfortunately the discussion (like many others) petered out. And this wasn’t even a PR (which some brave and determined soul needs to volunteer).

Realistically Carto is always going to be a tough nut to crack, not least because any solution also needs to simultaneously address the old highway=bus_guideway rendering.

Jarek · 2024-08-14T04:12:00.827Z

phodgkin:

I don’t think this is accurate. The split tagging usage is an issue, but a design concept for highway=busway was recently discussed , without opposition to the basic idea of rendering this tagging. Unfortunately the discussion (like many others) petered out.

imagico’s comments in March are not what I would consider without opposition to the basic idea: they write “There is nothing any of the maintainers here has against displaying bus exclusive roads if there is clear agreement among mappers on how to map those.” but their criteria for clear agreement, per this comment, is retagging: “pointers to changes in mapping practice if and when they happen.”

phodgkin:

any solution also needs to simultaneously address the old highway=bus_guideway rendering.

Perfect is the enemy of good. We don’t need to simultaneously address anything. Render busway the exact same way as highway=service+access=no. Then things will start being retagged where appropriate. Then you can fix any imperfections. And you’re anyway having imperfections now, with floating traffic lights because retagged busways aren’t being rendered…

JeroenHoek · 2024-08-14T20:26:51.543Z

phodgkin:

Realistically Carto is always going to be a tough nut to crack, not least because any solution also needs to simultaneously address the old highway=bus_guideway rendering.

This was done in my PR (contributed three years ago).

Jarek:

We don’t need to simultaneously address anything. Render busway the exact same way as highway=service+access=no.

This is done in the other PR.

Just use highway=busway and accept that our project’s frontpage has a broken renderer. A fair number of contributors have put in plenty of time and effort to solve this — OSMF knows this is an issue too, but effectively declines to get involved — but it’s not going to happen until one of the few remaining maintainers of Carto decide they want it, or Carto gets replaced.

So don’t waste your time. You’ll only get scolded even if you mean well and come with a convincing set of arguments. Point people to OsmAnd and OrganicMaps; those are the better showcases for OpenStreetMap, and on openstreetmap.org Tracestrack Topo does render them.

Don’t tag for the renderer.

Wynndale · 2024-08-14T22:07:30.550Z

Paul Norman is developing a vector tile-based system to replace Mapnik based rendering, which will make OSM-Carto obsolete as well.

Jarek · 2024-08-19T17:22:34.728Z

JeroenHoek:

So don’t waste your time. You’ll only get scolded even if you mean well and come with a convincing set of arguments. Point people to OsmAnd and OrganicMaps; those are the better showcases for OpenStreetMap, and on openstreetmap.org Tracestrack Topo does render them.

I agree, and this was part of my logic for suggesting the Software Dispute Resolution Panel.

As I understand it, the SDRP came about because people were pretty unhappy with iD’s project decisions coupled with its prominence as the default editor on osm.org. Because it’s one thing if Jarek’s Obscure Editor suggests bad tagging, and another thing if the web app at OpenStreetMap.org/edit does.

We can and should point people to other apps and layers, but it is also the case that OpenStreetMap.org, and carto and iD as the default choices on that, are many people’s introduction to OSM and colour their views.

Otherwise it’s a bit strange to be saying “use apps that have OpenStreetMap data but not OpenStreetMap.org because that doesn’t represent OpenStreetMap well”.

I would prefer not to feel compelled to append &layers=P every time I create a link to osm.org.

Friendly_Ghost · 2024-08-19T20:12:10.212Z

Jarek:

this was part of my logic for suggesting the Software Dispute Resolution Panel.

If you suggest that on Carto’s Github repo, I’ll get my ready.

Peter_Elderson · 2024-08-19T20:25:04.414Z

Friendly_Ghost:

I’ll get my ready.

Save me some, please!

supsup · 2024-09-20T21:26:15.235Z

By the way, imagico has a point that busway is not used consistently (I put the comment on github):

From the wiki, the following:

Bus-only service roads
Bus-only motorway links
Physically-separated bus bypass lanes
seemto be quite widely tagged as highway=busway.

Frankly I do not understand the rationale for these not being included in the definition. I am not sure if people expected highway=busway to be rendered differently from other roads - I think it would make sense to render them as any other roads inaccessible to cars and render BRT more on relations (because those should have the same visibility as for example metro lines when zoomed out, but based on the primary tag alone, one cannot do that).

JeroenHoek · 2024-09-21T07:59:11.104Z

<sarcasm>

Sounds like an excellent reason to not render anything (despite the fact that every use is at the very least a road exclusively for buses) until that is all sorted out.

I really hope Carto stops rendering building=* soon as well until all ambiguity is sorted there. It is massively abused. I mean, what do people even mean by ‘building’?

</sarcasm>

Richard · 2024-09-21T12:26:07.393Z

supsup:

By the way, imagico has a point that busway is not used consistently

This surprises me greatly because OSM tagging is known for its consistency!

supsup · 2024-09-22T00:28:26.957Z

Oh, if it were up to me, I would probably render it, however, does anybody know why those exceptions were made?

Peter_Elderson · 2024-09-22T08:18:40.030Z

supsup:

does anybody know why those exceptions were made?

Not really. Nobody can understand the reasoning given on github, because in tons of other cases the same reasoning would apply but the decision was different. At the moment, the Carto Cabal just doesn’t want to give in. Ever.

supsup · 2024-09-22T09:09:38.106Z

I am not asking about Carto. I am asking about the wiki (see above for link) - why short stretches of road exclusively used by buses are not included under highway=bus?

alan_gr · 2024-09-22T10:09:22.001Z

See “rationale” in the original proposal
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal:Tag:highway%3Dbusway

My understanding is that busway was intended to fill a perceived gap in the overall transport infrastructure tagging, for infrastructure related to BRT systems. I suspect it makes intuitive sense if you live in a city where BRT is a key part of the infrastructure, including several large South American cities. Short bus roads connecting to depots and so on were already covered by highway=service.

I think this brings us back to the “duck tagging or not” discussions referred to on several other threads recently. Is highway=cycleway for any random bit of path that a government decides to stick a blue bicycle sign on, or for actual cycleway infrastructure? Is highway=busway for any random piece of road reserved for buses, or for actual BRT corridors? (Perhaps brt_way would have led to clearer duck tagging but the proposers might have been told off for inventing English words).