Poll: Which highway=* value for a bus-only street with wide sidewalks and many pedestrians?

How would you tag the following street, knowing that:

  • Local signs explicitly allow access by buses and light goods vehicles, but there are no bus stops on this street or on adjacent streets; buses use it only as a transit corridor to reach a bus terminal further away
  • Local law allows property access by vehicles and unrestricted access by taxis (they can use it as a through-route, there is a taxi stop just before the bus terminal)
  • About 2/3 of its area consists of sidewalks
  • Many pedestrians roam freely throughout the day, both on the sidewalk and on the bus lane
  • Pedestrians are legally required to clear the bus lane when a bus approaches, but there is no signage communicating this, and no enforcement
  • In one part of the street (shown below), the bus lane is on the same level as the sidewalks, and in another stretch, it is separated by a kerb, but everything else stays the same
  • Most buildings are mixed-use, with stores on the ground floor and residences, offices or other services/uses above

For the purpose of this poll, assume all access tags and routing details are already set (vehicle=destination, psv=designated, goods=yes, foot=yes, surface=concrete, maxspeed=20, sidewalk=both), so the choice of highway=* affects only rendering, not routing for any mode (cars, bicycles, pedestrians, trucks, buses, taxis, etc.).

Which highway value best fits this street?
0 voters

Because it is a buslane first, pedestrians second I would opt for buslane. It would require the wiki to be updated though, because it currently contains an example which states explicitly this situation not to be used for a buslane.

thinking more: how many busses and taxis pass there?

If it is in general used by pedestrian and bus passes once per day with say 2 taxis per maxweightrating → pedestrian

If you have 20 busses per hour and 40 taxis per hour → not pedestrian and not busway


similarly, road with “for pedestrians, police car may appear” then if police car appears once per hour on slow patrol → pedestrian

if it would be a front entrance to police station with 60 police cars per hour passing there → service


similarly if road would be for pedestrian with garbage trucks allowed - then is it appearing once three days or do you get 15 per hour?

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There are probably something like 15 buses and 10 taxis per hour during peak hours, dropping to 0 buses and 2 taxis per hour at midnight, and around 5 buses and 5 taxis per hour during the day on weekends. In the early morning hours on weekdays (5 to 8 AM), there are likely many light goods vehicles restocking the many shops. On the other hand, by 4 PM (just before the rush hour) the street is packed with pedestrians all over it, it is very difficult to pass with a vehicle and the average speed drops to around 5 km/h. There is also a lot of pedestrians by around 8 to 9 AM, but not as many buses because the city buses departing to suburbs use other nearby streets that flow in the opposite direction of this street.

This street does not give direct nor indirect access to any emergency services (police stations, hospitals, etc.).

The garbage trucks run through the street once per evening after the rush hour, when the pedestrians are mostly gone.

Queen Street in Oxford is similar - through passage for buses, no bus stops, pedestrians roaming freely - and is tagged with highway=pedestrian, bus=designated. It works well.

OSM: Way: ‪Queen Street‬ (‪28194524‬) | OpenStreetMap

Photo: Queen Street © Andrew Tatlow :: Geograph Britain and Ireland

4 Likes