How would you map this crosswalk? I am unsure how do handle this properly.
Hi,
Although the area is striped, it doesn’t clearly look like a zebra crossing, and there doesn’t seem to be any additional pedestrian crossing signage. So I’m not sure crossing=marked would be appropriate here.
Mapping highway=crossing on a node is OK.
The markings could be crossing:markings=ladder:skewed, though I’m not quite sure just how to connect the footway ways if you choose to draw the ways
That is what I was thinking also. Do you mark the crossings as a line or just a node…
This looks like a standard parking lot configuration in the U.S. Maybe that’s where it’s from. If so, crosswalks in parking lots and other private property are primarily subject to accessibility laws rather than the usual traffic laws. A crosswalk across a parking lot access road often dangles into one of the parking aisles because pedestrians are expected to walk along the aisle behind the cars.
(Ironically, this crossing:markings=ladder:skewed pattern is what’s officially known as a zebra crossing here. The thing we tag as crossing:markings=zebra goes by other names.)
I would draw a way across the service road, particularly to keep the sidewalk from dangling. You could connect it to the parking lot area, though it isn’t going to matter much at that point. A router will automatically find its way onto the parking aisle, though not without some confusing guidance instructions.
You’re not sure you should tag a crossing that is very, very conspicuously marked… with crossing=marked?
A conventional pedestrian crossing is not just any area with painted lines. It normally has lines perpendicular to the crossing direction and connects two sidewalks or pedestrian paths.
In this case, the marked area does not seem to connect any pedestrian routes. Such markings can also be used to indicate areas where parking is not allowed, so they do not necessarily indicate a pedestrian crossing.
Therefore, without any additional signage, I’m not sure it would be appropriate to map this as a conventional/marked pedestrian crossing.
I would simply use highway=crossing if it is actually used as a pedestrian crossing, but I would avoid adding crossing=marked unless there is clear evidence that it is a marked crossing.
Northern, it’s a footway, isn’t it? Cars are not fully autonomous, they still have potential pedestrians inside that may want go out of the parking, aren’t they?
Any wrong asumption here?
@Wild_Spike, could you confirm the country where this example comes from, so that we can rule out any regional assumptions that don’t apply here?
“Normally” is doing a lot of work there. First of all, the pattern you’re describing is only required by the Vienna Convention. Some countries like the U.S. mark conventional pedestrian crossings with a variety of other patterns. The “zebra” (ladder:skewed) pattern pictured in the original screenshot is especially popular in parking lots. As of 2024, it’s no longer one of the standard crosswalk markings, but the two parallel transverse lines are enough to make it a legal crosswalk anyways. The diagonal line option persists in some states like California.
Even on public streets, many crosswalks lead to a patch of grass, whether marked, unmarked, or signalized. For example, this school crossing would appear to connect nothing to nothing. In reality, schoolchildren walk along the grassy verge to get to this crosswalk:
It only has school crossing signs as an optional safety enhancement, because cars on the highway don’t have to stop at this intersection, but if this were a low-speed road away from a school, there would be no signs:
There’s one in the same screenshot, marking an access aisle. This is not an access aisle, because it crosses the service road.
There’s overwhelming evidence that it’s a marked crossing. Regardless, this discussion is more evidence that crossing=* should be deprecated because too many conflicting assumptions have been piled onto that key over the years.
I assumed it was not an access aisle. It looks like one and is painted as such, but given its layout crossing the roadway and the original mapper’s comments, I assumed it could not actually be one. That’s why I suggested highway=crossing.
Without further information, I’d leave it like this provisionally, even if it looks like something else.
Yes, a zebra crosswalk does visually resemble a neutral area, such as an access aisle. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell where a crosswalk begins and an access aisle begins:
This may be one reason why the national standard no longer recommends the zebra pattern as it did until recently.
