I do Danish translations (for the iD Editor) and am struggling a bit with ‘Parking Lot’. More specifically, I now need to find the best translation for ‘Surface Parking Lot’ which, according to the notes for the string in the translator, applies to ‘amenity=parking + parking=surface’
There are a couple of issues. One is that a string for ‘Parking Lot’ already exists, which according to the notes simply applies to ‘amenity=parking’. But what is then the difference between a ‘Parking Lot’ and a ‘Surface Parking Lot’? Should the existing ‘Parking Lot’ string simply be ‘Parking’?
Another problem is that, as far as I tell, there isn’t really an unambiguous, specific Danish word for ‘Parking Lot’. At present, ‘parkeringsplads’ is used, but in my view this is a word that, in everyday speech, is often also used as a general term for parking, regardless of the type. However, I have already asked about this issue in the Danish forum.
“Parking Lot” is generic and not specifying which type of parking it is (but surface parking lot is fairly common and data consumers may assume that and mappers may tag only other types)
“Surface Parking Lot” is tagged as being specifically parking=surface
seems fitting for amenity=parking not specifying further info? Or is it even more generic and would include say parked planes or boats?
It may be because English isn’t my first language, but I’ve actually always understood ‘Parking Lot’ to mean something specific, non-generic, that is, a larger area which, for example, is different from parking with only a few parking spaces along a road.
My initial thought was (at least in Danish) therefore to change the translation of ‘Parking Lot’ to simply ‘Parking’ to emphasise the generic nature of the amenity=parking tag.
In my opinion, the following applies:amenity=parking designates a generic parking feature. On its own, it does not specificy the capacity for a specific number of vehicles. This makes it different from amenity=parking_space, which is intended for parking of a single vehicle. parking=surface provides the additional information that the parking feature is the normal outdoor, ground-level parking lot that you can, for example, find next to most supermarkets.
Single-word translations might not be sufficient to fully describe each concept. Do you have space for a more detailed explanation?
I’m probably not very good at explaining exactly what my concern is. I realise that amenity=parking is a generic tag, but my issue is with the translation of the term itself, ‘Parking Lot’, which this tag has in the editor. Up until now, I’ve understood the addition of ‘Lot’ to indicate a specific type of parking, namely the one defined by ‘amenity=parking + parking=surface’.
But if I’m wrong, there’s probably not a general issue, but perhaps just a Danish one.
In American English at least, a parking lot is a collection of individual surface parking spaces which are separated from the street. It’s a lot (parcel of land) on which parking exists and wouldn’t refer to other types of parking (street, garage, underground).
Looking at the wiki page for amenity=parking, it seems that parking=surface is assumed by default. This would make it reasonable to call a plain amenity=parking a “parking lot” in iD, but why not just add parking=surface explicitly and remove the separate surface parking lot preset?
I mostly agree, except that “parking lot” can also refer to a parking garage either informally or in some dialects. There are a lot of regional dialectal terms for surface parking and especially parking garages. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of confusion about what the Parking Lot preset represents among American English speakers, but there might be more of a problem among non-native-speaking users of that localization. For other localizations, translators should feel free to translate the preset’s name more loosely.
We still need a preset for just amenity=parking on its own, because parking=* only occurs 58% of the time on existing elements that the user might select. If we really need to split hairs about whether a bare amenity=parking could be a garage, then “parking area” is an option, but it could mislead mappers to draw it as a less precise area, similar to a land use area. Another option is “parking lot or structure”, but we try to avoid ambivalent naming when possible.
Interesting. I’ve not heard of a “parking garage” referred to as a “parking lot” before. I’ve always understood the terms to be mutually exclusive with “parking lot” referring to a (mostly) uncovered surface parking area, usually of some decent size (inexact but certainly more than a just a few spaces). This may just be my perspective as an American English speaker from the northeastern United States though. I’m not intimately familiar with all the regional English dialects of North America.
This makes sense to me. “Parking area” is the term I would use to describe parking of any type in a generic way.
I am a native English speaker and this matches my understanding of the term, but as discussed above it’s possible this is not universal among all of us.
You aren’t wrong. We’re talking about an imprecise use of the term. The quintessential parking lot is outdoors, but most of the time people refer to an amenity=parking in conversation, they don’t bother to distinguish by structure.
We don’t seem to have a good general word for a parking lot-or-structure. “Parking area” might work, as long as we think the risk of mistagging land use is low enough. The legal term of art seems to be “parking facility”, but a layperson would think that’s biased towards garages and underground parking lots. Another technical term is “off-street parking”, but that doesn’t quite fit amenity=parking either: you can even use the tag for micromapping street parking.
Early on, the preset was just “Parking”. That isn’t a terrible option now that we have a separate Parking Space preset. Maybe “Car Parking” to avoid confusion with bike parking facilities.
As a speaker of Southern Ontario Canadian English, may I suggest “Car Parking” or simply “Parking” as label for an amenity=parking object with no further clarifying tags?
“Parking” seems to me pretty unambiguous in referring to some sort of facility to park vehicles, and it doesn’t contradict more specific descriptions like parking lot, parking garage, street-side parking or parking bays, underground parking, etc.
Other varieties of English may vary, though… I imagine en_UK might want it to be “Car Park” instead?
“English (GB)” would, I think. I’ve just checked iD and it hasn’t translated “Parking Lot” from American to English (or “Sidewalks” - which is further complicated because there OSM uses (for good reasons) American English rather than English English as a tag name).
“vehicle park” might be more correct, because the tag also covers parking for other kinds of vehicles than cars.
By the way, it might be a good idea to consider the definitions 3.1.3.57 to 3.1.3.59 of the international standard ISO 6707-1:2020 Buildings and civil engineering works — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms, which provides British and US terms and their definitions. (We don’t need to exactly follow that standard, but it probably makes sense to have a good rationale for any deviations.)