What's the traffic_calming=island area?

Hi, I have a micromapping question. If I want to draw a traffic_calming=island area, should I map the painted area or the “physical” area? en.wikipedia says: " A traffic island is a solid or painted object in a road that channels traffic", but since sometimes we have other conventions I prefere to ask. Also we could update the OSM wiki to make it clear.

In case mapping the painted area is the correct option, is there a way to map the physical one as well? I was thinking of barrier=kerb closed way but I read is to be used only for sidewalks, which is not the case.

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I was thinking of barrier=kerb but I read is to be used only for sidewalks, which is not the case.

the barrier kerb tag is perfectly fine here, we can fix the wiki, where did you see it?

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Here (Key:kerb):

A kerb is the edge where a road meets a sidewalk.
and
Tag the node node on the highway=footway, highway=cycleway, or highway=path
made me think it can’t be used for traffic islands which are not pedestrian/bicycle crossings like this one.

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By all means: if it’s a kerb, use barrier=kerb + kerb=*. A kerb is a kerb.
In Germany, we also have kerbs directly on the road sometimes, in order to have vehicles going over it forfeit their right of way. So yes: it’s perfectly fine to use it on any part of the road.

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Considering what you wrote, in this case (when there’s a solid area inside of a larger painted area), I therefore propose to map the painted area as traffic_calming=island and the physical one as barrier=kerb + kerb=*.
if there’s consensus I could edit the Tag.traffic_calming=island wiki page adding this tagging schema. Let me know everyone (you can add a :+1: or :frowning_face: if you don’t want to comment).

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To me, the kerb is just the physical border where the footway and the street meet. So a footway crossing a traffic island usually has two kerb barriers:

But you could of course also at a kerb=lowered tag to your traffic island as a whole I suppose.

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| ivanbranco
February 22 |

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dieterdreist:

he barrier kerb tag is perfectly fine here, we can fix the wiki, where did you see it?

Here (Key:kerb):

A kerb is the edge where a road meets a sidewalk.
and
Tag the node node on the highway=footway, highway=cycleway, or highway=path
made me think it can’t be used for traffic islands which are not pedestrian/bicycle crossings like this one.


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the tag for kerbs is
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:barrier%3Dkerb

The definition already fits for your case.

the kerb key is a property to give additional detail, but I have now added something for traffic islands

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I see, I was confused by the Kerb - OpenStreetMap Wiki redirect. If kerb=* is for “additional detail” maybe it should redirect to barrier=kerb instead (or the page changed from a redirect one to a disambiguation one).

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see this, then I tend to say, no. There are other key/value.

there is also area:highway=traffic_island used.

and

area:highway=emergency


link

also area:highway=shoulder

you could also use =apron for a surmountable elevation, often used at roundabout paved inner circle, where the hgv combination last wheels need to take it, to make the curve. truck apron.
On the inside or outside of a curve.

area:highway=* is additionally used to describe the shape of linear features tagged as highway=*.
But traffic_calming=island isn’t a highway=* tag and also it’s already possible to map it as an area, so I don’t really see the point of it in this specific case.

EDIT: By the way, I also found this: Tag:traffic_calming=painted_island… It’s so confusing, also because all these elements aren’t linked to each other in the Wiki. I added a reference to them in the Tag:traffic_calming=island “See also” section.

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I edited Kerb - OpenStreetMap Wiki

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As painted islands do not cause physical separation, it probably does not make much sense to map them as separate objects in OSM?

As far as I can tell, the tag is only being used for islands that are physically raised, but also have an additional painted area around them. This explains why the two carriageways are split at the point of the traffic island.

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