yes, but it does not apply to this one (though I am saying it based on this photo, would require local survey), there are stronger cases that were mentioned several times.
similarly if someone would spray-paint graffiti “ban cars” it does not mean that tagging motor_vehicle=no is a good idea.
yes, but it does not apply to this one (though I am saying it based on this photo, would require local survey), there are stronger cases that were mentioned several times.
are we going to distinguish legal restrictions from recommendations in this context?
yes, in the same way as we do for bans/discouragement for access more broadly
so is “oneway:foot” about a legal prescription or a discouragement or polite suggestion?
for when it is against actual rules
Be careful, if you use foot:backward=no or foot:forward=no you aren’t considering other users like bikes or motorbikes that could be using it (at least the sign doesn’t prohibits them), so maybe access:forward=no or access:backward=no are the only options.
I do not get it. Is this not the same as I wrote above?
Be careful, if you use
foot:backward=noorfoot:forward=noyou aren’t considering other users like bikes or motorbikes that could be using it
for vehicle there is oneway which you should add if these are permitted in one direction only
If routers are telling pedestrians to walk in the traffic lanes of a motorway, as opposed to a shoulder or sidewalk, then they’re probably in deep trouble whether they go with or against the flow of traffic.
In the Americas, most secure international border crossings have one-way sidewalks leading up to the checkpoint. Many public airports also have security checkpoints and exit lanes that rely on a combination of armed guards, security cameras, timed audio cues (“Keep moving!”), and automated gates to ensure that passengers proceed expeditiously in one direction. I don’t think we need to be concerned about the possibility of moonwalking through a security line.
My first use of oneway=yes on a highway=footway was this footpath in a park in Texas. After visiting for a second time, I noticed the small signs requiring pedestrians to walk clockwise around the lake, stay off the grass, and avoid feeding the wildlife. This was a month after the initial Pokémon Go release, so the park was swarming with teens fixated on that game, roundly ignoring all three regulations. Nevertheless, the oneway=yes tag was valid information about the path. Valhalla routes clockwise around the lake as I’d expect, but apparently this is surprising to some here.
The standard 
and 
signs are only for vehicular one-way restrictions, so they aren’t used in the cases I described. For that matter, these signs are also disallowed on one-way streets that have contraflow bike lanes, in favor of Do Not Enter, Wrong Way, and No Left Turn signs.
At least in the routing engines I’m familiar with, this is actually rather natural. For example, OSRM has separate profiles for walking, cycling, and driving. A separate routing graph is computed for each, so the mere fact that a road is represented by an edge in the routing graph means that it’s relevant to pedestrians. At this point, the router has no context about other modes of transportation, but if the edge has a one-way flag based on oneway=yes, then the router could feasibly assume it applies to pedestrians.
As a matter of fact, OSRM’s default foot profile only honors oneway:foot=yes and ignores oneway=yes:
This would seem like a slam dunk in favor of your proposal, but the underlying reason isn’t what you think. Since the very early days, OSRM has taken the stance that both pedestrians and cyclists should ignore one-way restrictions unless there’s a more specific restriction (e.g., oneway:foot=yes). After all, the street may be restricted to one-way traffic, but this doesn’t stop a pedestrian from walking contraflow on the shoulder or sidewalk, which is assumed to allow two-way movement.
Likewise, OSRM tells cyclists to walk their bikes against the flow of a one-way street, again assuming a sidewalk or sidepath. Confusingly, OSRM doesn’t yet honor one-way overrides on sidewalks or bike lanes, though it did add a heuristic that prevents this contraflow movement if there’s a bike lane. Perhaps it should also account for sidewalk=use_sidepath and sidewalk=separate.
This is a very reasonable strategy, but it seems to me like a two-step strategy for a regional tag cleanup campaign rather than a global tagging proposal. The proposal states a specific known scenario in which oneway=yes has been skunked, in a particular country, so why not use this strategy to clean up the tags, rather than forcing the rest of the world to reaffirm oneway=yes really=yes on footpaths that aren’t such a known quantity? A little temporary redundancy in one country instead of permanent redundancy in every country.
To me, the concept is simple. oneway=* on a roadway applies to everyone in the street, but the effect on the shoulder or sidewalk is undefined. On the other hand, oneway=* on a footpath applies to everyone on the path, because footpaths are for feet. If an occasional maintenance vehicle is also allowed on the path and can go in either direction, there’s a oneway:motor_vehicle=* key for that. If bicycles are allowed on the path and can go in either direction, there’s a oneway:bicycle=* key for that. This is what people mean when they say that pedestrians have “priority” on a footway, right? 
|
|
- | - |
In the Americas, most secure international border crossings have one-way sidewalks leading up to the checkpoint.
once you are on such a sidewalk, would it be forbidden to change your mind and walk back? You would have to continue and cross the border?
Many public airports also have security checkpoints and exit lanes that rely on a combination of armed guards, security cameras, timed audio cues (“Keep moving!”), and automated gates to ensure that passengers proceed expeditiously in one direction. I don’t think we need to be concerned about the possibility of moonwalking through a security line.
also there, no backing up and speaking to an armed guard once you are in such a lane?
Seriously, which part of “no” do you not understand?
You’ve been insistent for many months now that no pedestrian ways can be “oneway” despite lots of people giving you lots of examples. Surely at some point you have to be able to accept that all of the people who have claimed to have seen oneway pedestrian ways might not be part of a Big Conspiracy Theory™ and might actually just be reporting the world as they see it?
| SomeoneElse Andy Townsend Support moderator
December 23 |
- | - |
dieterdreist:
also there, no backing up and speaking to an armed guard once you are in such a lane?
Seriously, which part of “no” do you not understand?
You’ve been insistent for many months now that no pedestrian ways can be “oneway” despite lots of people giving you lots of examples.
most of the examples were actually “soft”, in the sense that the directional restriction for pedestrians was not comparable to a directional restriction for vehicles, and not respecting them would not have consequences. “backing up” in queues is quite common, and while I agree that the “queue” is somehow directed, it is not a hard restriction as it is for vehicles.
Surely at some point you have to be able to accept that all of the people who have claimed to have seen oneway pedestrian ways might not be part of a Big Conspiracy Theory™ and might actually just be reporting the world as they see it?
+1
IMHO Minh somehow confirmed what I wrote about “punctual” restrictions when he wrote about “automatic gates”, because indeed, you will not be able in such security defined contexts, to go back against the direction through such an automated gate, but until you pass the gate, you can usually go back and go to a rest room, or what else comes to mind.
What do you mean by “consequences”?
If you mean legal consequences, one way restrictions for vehicles are mapped on a wide variety of ways outside the public highways system: private properties, privately run parking lots, grounds of hotel and golf courses, and so on. I doubt that most mappers worry about the precise legal ability to enforce traffic rules in all these situations, which I think varies widely by country and within countries. I think oneway=yes in those situations generally means it is signed as oneway, regardless of the legalities.
If you mean practical consequences, trying to walk against a crowd entering stadium turnstiles seems more likely to lead to injury than, say, ignoring a one way arrow painted on the ground in an empty parking lot.
To reiterate, an automated airport exit lane consists of three or more gates in series. To prevent breaches, they open one at a time to force you through tiny confined spaces in the forward direction, sort of like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. A recorded voice ushers you through the compartments. If you turn around, reverse, or loiter in one of the compartments, an alarm will sound and most likely someone will come to question you. (Don’t ask me how I know this. 
)
The exit lanes at SJC are mapped as both indoor footpaths and indoor rooms so you can get a better sense of the space.
One-way restrictions on streets have different consequences; I will grant you that.
On the other hand, if you think one-ways are only mappable if obeyed, then I have a roundabout in Naples to sell you…
I’ve seen vehicles driving the wrong way down one way streets without consequence. I’ve even accidentally done it myself in an unfamiliar area. Depends how busy or not the road is.
One of the park districts in my area has several “directional trails” that form loops. Like many park managers, they originally implemented these rules for social distancing during the pandemic, but they’ve kept most of the restrictions in place based on positive feedback from trail users. Respondents appreciated the reduced risk of head-on collisions with distracted hikers, the simplicity compared to two-way traffic, and the reduced need to pull over for passing traffic. Sound familiar?
They’ve posted multimodal one-way signs that explicitly apply to all trail users, including hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians:
The directional trail signs aren’t standard signs in the sense of having an MUTCD sign code that we can document on the wiki, but by law, any black text on a white rectangle is supposed to be a regulatory sign, with the same legal force as any of the standard regulatory signs. These are durable metal signs, but technically they could’ve probably gotten away with computer printouts. After all, this is a trail; the trail manager makes all the rules.
As part of a pilot program, one of the single-track loop trails in their system has since reverted to two-way traffic for most trail users but remains one-way for mountain bikers. The direction – and the signs – alternate every month. This is job security for the local volunteer trail mappers.
Yes, it would often require extra handling like getting permission from armed guard.
And in unusual cases you can also back up on one-way roads.
(And I am pretty sure that we had exactly the same exchange before)
Not that unusual. Consider a one-way parking aisle in a crowded parking lot: in order to vacate a space, you have to briefly reverse against the flow of traffic. Another car waiting for the space may have to reverse to give you room. The worst such parking lot in my area is actually at the DMV office, where residents register their cars and take the driving exam to earn a driver’s license. One of the tests is to successfully reverse out of a parking space. Unfortunately, the office has far too little parking, so there’s usually a line of a dozen impatient drivers to negotiate with, if you were lucky enough to find a space in the first place.
In fairness, this is a situation where pedestrians can certainly walk against the flow of traffic, directly in the “roadway”, despite oneway=yes. But if we intend to micromanage movement within a parking lot to this degree, then we have plenty more to worry about than just directionality. A pedestrian can squeeze between cars to access a space (unless in a wheelchair or unless the cars are poorly parked). A car can use empty spaces to cross between aisles. Does the physical separation principle require us to reduce the parking lot to a point, except around islands of shrubbery? Etc. etc. This degree of pedantry serves no one.
Thanks for weighing in - I always enjoy reading your insightful comments. It’s a shame we’re in the voting period now, otherwise it could have been possible to take them into account in the proposal.
Sorry, I don’t understand this point. My point was that with the current tagging mess, the best chance that a pedestrian router has to correctly interpret the data is to use an algorithm like:
If the
footwayhas aonewaytag then assume it applies to pedestrians (= don’t route pedestrians against the direction of the way), except if it has a tag likebicycle=designated, then assume theonewaydoesn’t apply to pedestrians (= route pedestrians both ways)
This will result in the correct decision most of the time, but people were arguing that it’s counterintuitive for pedestrian routers to have to look at vehicle access tags to work out who is meant by the oneway tag, and @easbar (GraphHopper) was one of them if I remember correctly. Do you disagree with this?
Personally that makes sense to me: I think on a shared-use path, oneway:bicycle is much clearer than oneway if what you’re trying to say is that it’s one-way for bicycles. But I suspect you may be underestimating how well established the consensus is in the German community (and maybe also in some other European countries?) that the oneway tag never applies to pedestrians.
For an example, see this discussion on the StreetComplete issue tracker on the question “which tag should SC set if the user determines that a cycleway or a path a footway with bicycle=designated is oneway [for bicycles but not for pedestrians]”. The consensus in that discussion seems to be that SC should set the oneway= tag.
The Valhalla bug I reported, that you linked to, is a bit different and not directly related to this proposal. It’s about highway=pedestrian, not =footway. oneway=yes is very common on pedestrianised streets in European city centres, where those vehicles that are allowed to use the street (e.g. taxis, buses) are only allowed to use it in one direction. A router that doesn’t route pedestrians against the direction of the one-way will be wrong >99% of the time.
