How to best tag pedestrian bridges used for road crossings?

Help and support Tagging help & support
1

I have a feature I’d like to add that consists of basically a pedestrian bridge with stairs on either end that goes over a car road so as to not disrupt the flow of car traffic with a light controlled marked crossing.

Roughly this in nature:

image
image1024×768 208 KB

I don’t see an example of this on the Wiki so I’m not sure what the recommended tagging schema is:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:bridge

Should the way be tagged as this for the non-stairs part?

bridge=yes
highway=footway
layer=1

And then the stairs tagged as this?


bridge=yes
highway=steps
layer=1
2

Yes, but the stairs don’t need a layer tag as they are not above another feature.

5 Likes
3

And if you want to tag the name=* or start_date=* of the bridge, you can draw a polygon around the whole bridge, and add man_made=bridge.

3 Likes
4

feel free to edit it with an extra info!

1 Like
5

Should the way be tagged as this for the non-stairs part?

bridge=yes
highway=footway
layer=1

And then the stairs tagged as this?


bridge=yes
highway=steps
layer=1

if you want to add more detail, you can specify the direction of the steps
incline=up
and the number (split the continuous flight of steps from the platforms)
step_count=number

6

or incline=down, depending on direction of highway=steps way

7

Thanks, my main concern was since technically the bridge has to consist of at least three ways if people typically use something like a Relation to link the three+ just in case someone comes back to name or add a ref tag rather than the two tag schemas across three ways in my proposed tagging.

Which I guess begs the question should I come across one with a ref id or name… do you use a Relation for naming or ref for this feature, or do you do a ref and name for each individual way or just the walkway in the air and not the stairs?

8

I am not sure I understand your question correctly, but usually, we don’t create relations out of the different parts a highway consists of but add things like name=* to each segment.

3 Likes
9

name of bridge an similar info goes on man_made=bridge outline (there are some tagging schemes with tags on roads/footways, but tagging this on bridge object seems preferable)

probably someone invented some horrific relation but it is in general poor idea and definitely bad idea in case like pictured on your photo

2 Likes
10

Thanks, my main concern was since technically the bridge has to consist of at least three ways if people typically use something like a Relation to link the three+ just in case someone comes back to name or add a ref tag rather than the two tag schemas across three ways in my proposed tagging.

For bridges I hardly ever used a relation, you can draw a polygon around it and have bridge attributes like identifiers tagged there, main tag is man_made=bridge, and this is the only actual bridge.
The highways with bridge=yes are on a bridge (property), but are only hinting at the actual bridge, not represent the bridge itself

1 Like
11

I think you understood it and going off other comments it looks like an area is used for name and/or ref. What I was asking was:

Idea 1:

  • Relation of type bridge or something similar
  • Relation itself has name/ref=*
  • Linked to way1, way2, way3

Idea 2:

  • Stairs 1: bridge=yes; highway=steps; name/ref=*
  • Stairs 2: bridge=yes; highway=steps; name/ref=*
  • ‘Floating’ way: bridge=yes; highway=footway; name/ref=; layer=

Idea 3:

  • Stairs 1: bridge=yes; highway=steps
  • Stairs 2: bridge=yes; highway=steps
  • ‘Floating’ way: bridge=yes; highway=footway; name/ref=; layer=

Ultimately though the suggestions point to this for a named/ref situation:

  • Stairs 1: bridge=yes; highway=steps
  • Stairs 2: bridge=yes; highway=steps
  • ‘Floating’ way: bridge=yes; highway=footway; layer=1
  • Area: name/ref=*; man_made = bridge; layer=1
2 Likes
12
  • Stairs 1: bridge=yes; highway=steps
  • Stairs 2: bridge=yes; highway=steps
  • ‘Floating’ way: bridge=yes; highway=footway; layer=1
  • Area: name/ref=*; man_made = bridge; layer=1

And the area goes around the whole structure, the footway and both steps. At least in this photo, because the steps are a part of the bridge.

2 Likes