A series of changesets in my area have split up a four block highway=pedestrian so that the the segments within each intersection can be tagged highway=footway + footway=crossing. Some examples:
I plan to revert this as it seems incorrect to change the main highway classification just for these short section within intersections. But before I do, I figured I’d post here for a sanity check. The changes appear to have been directed by a Maproulette challenge although there is no link to which one. So I’m hoping for some help tracking that down.
I had the same issue here. Wanted to tag the crossing, but also to keep the highway=pedestrian. Decided to add pedestrian=crossing with the same crossing tags you would put on a footway=crossing. Think it works out fine. It would be strange to downgrade the highway= in both our cases.
Also of note in this case, the pedestrian way is a continuous brick surface and pedestrians always have the right of way. Motor vehicles cross the pedestrian street and yield to pedestrians. If either of the ways were to be split to indicate a crossing it would make more sense to split the cross streets, though we don’t have tagging for this. Probably most sensible to leave both continuous.
Definitely where there is clear crossing infrastructure (markings, signals, signs) this makes sense. For example with the example@DwarfNebula shared there are painted crossing markings.
The Church Street pedestrian marketplace I’m wondering about is somewhat different. Here are better photos of its intersection with Cherry Street.
Grade level is continuous for pedestrians and the crossing motor vehicle streets rise up to meet it. The brick surface material is also continuous for the pedestrian way. Motor vehicle must stop at the stop sign and can proceed through the intersection only when it is free of pedestrians. The change of surface from asphalt to brick reinforces that motor vehicles are lower priority in this space. There are strips of tactile paving to give pedestrians a heads up before passing through the intersection, and the brick laying pattern change gives a visual cue as well. I’m not sure this would qualify as a crossing marking though as there is no high visibility paint. There are also no signs indicating a pedestrian crossing, and no crossing signals controlling the intersection. Pedestrians simply have priority. So I suppose what I’m really wondering is if this is even a “crossing” at all in OSM terms.
Yes I’m aware of that tag. IIRC the discussion around its development focused mostly on highway=footway and highway=cycleway crossing motor vehicle streets and didn’t really consider how a highway=pedestrian intersecting a motor vehicle street should be mapped. I did bring up this same street to pose the question though.
It’s not clear to me that this type of intersection should get the same kind of mapping as a footway or sidewalk street crossing, but if that ends up being the consensus, crossing:continuous=yes would be appropriate.
Thank you. I will reach out but I’d like to get clarity on whether these intersections should be split and mapped as crossing ways at all first. It seems my initial instinct that they should not may not be the consensus view, though it seems much clearer that the classification should remain highway=pedestrian and not change to highway=footway through the intersection.
Hey just wanted to let you know the conversation is on our radar. We’re more than happy to make any necessary changes. The team will be back online tomorrow morning.
Not sure about the regulation in the US, but for example in Germany in a situation like yours either also the road would need to be a highway=pedestrian (with all the legal implications) or the pedestrian zone would be split into two zones and then the crossing would be indeed just a highway=footway.
One of the implications is no cycling and no driving which would make passing the road impossible. But highway=pedestrian might be defined differently in other parts.
Are you sure that any intersection between a highway=pedestrian and motor vehicle road implies motor_vehicle=no in Germany? So here for example cars shouldn’t be able to pass and this routing shouldn’t be possible?
I think this crossing would not be a priority pedestrian crossing in Nederland. The crossing surface should have zebra-markings for that. Stop signs do not apply to pedestrians. Drivers do not have to pass a clear bump or kerb, and there is no footway sign. Drivers and cyclists would probably be unsure about the rules at this crossing, and I know places where this is actually applied as the best safety measure they could come up with.
I think this crossing would be a fancy pedestrian crossing in Canada. Legally, any place where two streets cross is a pedestrian crossing, and there is no separate concept of a priority pedestrian crossing. The crossing surface, markings, and signage have no legal significance, and indeed any vertical sign for drivers is usually absent. Drivers would expect to yield to pedestrians crossing the street in front of a stop sign.
… Just joining in the thread of perspectives from places that aren’t where the OP is asking about
I would personally not split the highway=pedestrian here, and tag only the highway=stop nodes on the car roadway, and then the intersection node:
In this case, I would also expect the car road to be split as well, with surface=paving_stones and traffic_calming=table tags. And barrier=kerb, kerb=flush, tactile_paving=yes on the ends of the “crossing”.
In this particular spot I think mapping it with a separate highway=footway crossing way would actually be better, as at least on Google aerial and streetside imagery I see pretty clearly that the car street continues and there’s no special design to the crossing, it’s a plain unmarked crossing and I’m not even sure if the curb is lowered.
Someplace like Node: 32053498 | OpenStreetMap might be a better example in Germany, although Google’s 2022 streetside still quite clearly shows a curb and continuous asphalt car street, so perhaps this should be split in OSM as well:
I would do the same and this is how the intersections in question were mapped until recently.
Would highway=pedestrian + pedestrian=crossing not be more consistent with highway=footway + footway=crossing and highway=cycleway + cycleway=crossing?
If we consider a highway=pedestrian to be most similar to a highway=footway or a highway=cycleway then splitting at crossings makes sense in order to match how it is done with those way types. Splitting makes less sense if highway=pedestrian is closer to a highway=living_street, highway=residential, or highway=service as those ways types are not commonly split to account for an intersection. Or maybe I’ve just not been paying attention and micro-mapping motor vehicle intersections is already on the rise!
When I wrote that pedestrians have priority, I did not mean to suggest that this was legally codified[1]. I meant that they have de-facto priority in practice. I’ve spend lots of time on this street over the past 15 years and during that time I’ve always observed pedestrians walking straight through the intersections like they own the space while motor vehicles wait. Sometimes the vehicles are stopped at the stop signs. Sometimes they stop again in the middle of the intersection as a group of pedestrians steps right out in front of them. When pedestrians are nearby, vehicles move slowly through the space so they can stop at a moments notice. I just remembered there is a live stream of the marketplace that shows one of the intersections some of the time, if anyone else would like to observe what pedestrian/vehicle interactions are like here.
Oh, something like this? If that is what @aighes meant by an intersection that is impassible to motor vehicles, then I have misunderstood. Anyway the intersections in my OP are passable to motor vehicles, so not the same situation.
It might be but I haven’t read all the relevant regulations ↩︎
Yes, legally there are no highway=pedestrian-ways in Germany, but only areas/zones. Within the zones only pedestrians are allowed (in some cases there are exceptions for cycling and deliveries). Either you are in the zone or not. That’s why there can’t be such intersections.
