Should iD be tagging crossing=uncontrolled instead of crossing=marked?
#408
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That doesn't sound right to me - it is primarily used for road crossings in practice, with railway usage being much less common, and was indeed approved for this use through a vote. What specifically makes it "more useful for railway crossings"?
According to the majority of documentation I've been able to find, the typical set of choices is If you feel that there is still some kind of additional context provided by
Is that not something that should be discussed on a community-wide level, considering the extremely wide adoption, rather than encoded into the presets of a major editor? |
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iD supports neither scheme completely. Since 2019, it has had presets for For better or worse,
If iD were to simply add a preset for |
tyrasd
added
considering
waitfor-consensus
There are far more road crossings than railway crossings, hence why it has more uses.
I don't know about you but I prefer to not play Russian roulette while crossing railway tracks.
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Aaahhhh, that is the missing piece of the puzzle then. In trying to figure out crossing tagging conventions, I haven't run across anything that made this clear - I was under the impression that the new tagging scheme was "
Is that not specifically because of iD adoption, though? The impression I've gotten is that the rest of the community is mainly sticking to
I had not run across this proposal before, and it brings up a number of good points. I'm curious why it seems to have gotten stuck.
This is not any different from or more informative than Overall: while I do not find all of the arguments presented convincing, I think there are enough good arguments to alleviate my original concern of semantic duplication, and that there's no need to immediately change anything in the iD presets. So I suppose that the original question in this issue has been answered. That having been said:
The first two points are out-of-scope for this repository, though. |
Most people tend to use the presets provided by their editor.
Replace "the rest of the community" with "JOSM users".
But before that the proposal should pass through the full proposal process. |
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To my mind it definitely needs orthogonal tagging to describe situations. In fact I'd argue there is more than one orthogonality needed. Marked/unmarked to describe whether there are markings on the road surface defining the crossing. Raised/not raised to describe whether the crossing is on top of some kind of associated traffic-calming bump or not. For example near where I live there are examples of Puffin crossings (traffic signal controlled marked pedestrian crossings) and unmarked segregated cycle track/pedestrian crossings being associated with speed bumps. Pedestrian only/cyclist only/pedestrian and cyclist in one space/pedestrian and cyclist in separate spaces. Again to use a UK example Toucan crossings are traffic signal controlled marked pedestrian and cyclist crossings where pedestrians and cyclists are not segregated on the crossing whereas parallel crossings are marked pedestrian and cyclist crossings where pedestrians and cyclists are segregated on the crossing. Pedestrian/cyclist/pedestrian and cyclist to define who can use the crossing. Controlled/uncontrolled is an unhelpful distinction nomenclature because it encompasses more than one characteristic in its "distinction" attempt. It is thus ambiguous and open to serious misinterpretation. Re-posted to the correct issue this time! |
Good point. I wrote a new overview article about the different kinds of crossings and the conflicting crossing classification schemes. I also explained the |
Thanks! That definitely helps. A few minor nitpicks that I ran into while researching crossings (originally intending to write an article about this myself):
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Thanks for taking a look. Please help improve the page or make further suggestions on the article’s talk page so we can keep this repository on topic. I detailed three tagging schemes but there are other tags that don’t fit neatly into any of these schemes, especially given how |
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Just to chime in, here a JOSM user in favour of "marked" vs. "uncontrolled", though not so much a nomenclatura suprematist to rule out such a nice value as "traffic_signals". On to the message: I very much doubt, that there are in fact any "uncontrolled" railway crossings, at least not in the Western world, as all "valid" railway crossings are at least signalised, at the minimum by blowing the horn, that is, when coming near the place. If it that tagging really is widespread, I suspect, people use this for stuff, where actually "crossing=no" should be the legally compliant tag, plus "informal=yes" on the crossing path, the OSM way of mapping such. |
In urban areas of North America, a tram or light rail crossing for pedestrians can be subject to a whistle ban or quiet zone and may lack crossing gates and lights. The only form of traffic control is that light rail vehicles are restricted to 5 miles per hour along adjacent tracks. There’s a preset for Outside of the Western world, uncontrolled railway crossings are common in Vietnam, for example, although they may not be reliably tagged as such. They aren’t quite informal, because the authorities put up level crossing warning signs when they discover these crossings. Anyways, most of the |
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"I very much doubt, that there are in fact any "uncontrolled" railway crossings, at least not in the Western world, as all "valid" railway crossings are at least signalised, " Erm nope. Totally wrong. There are hundreds of crossings in the UK alone which are completely uncontrolled. Now admittedly they tend to be foot crossings for the most part, but they are still completely uncontrolled. Completely uncontrolled as in walk along the footpath, open the gate at the near edge of the railway land, look both ways, cross the railway, open the gate at the far edge of the railway land and walk through it. There is such a thing as an uncontrolled crossing for roads in the UK as well however. This for example: |
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If the train there does not give a whistle, then I stand corrected, and the example shows an uncontrolled crossing. Around my location, almost all railway crossings have been converted to underpass or overpass. On a recent visit to another part of the country, I heard train whistles, this kind of signalling still exists. As to tram: Rail is all about signals, while tram operates on sight. They are very different. PS: Picture of "controlled" railway crossing https://oekastatic.orf.at/mims/2019/23/95/crops/w=1280,q=70,r=1/176981_bigpicture_45195_img_7098_hell.jpg |
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Correct about railway and tram when it comes to tram street running. However again you miss things: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127699427@N02/30906536117 That's a railway station. It's also a tram. Trams on that section most certainly do not run using line of sight! There are also plenty of instances where trams utilise former heavy rail infrastructure which certainly opens up the possibility of running using signalling there as well. Not saying that they do use signalling on such sections, but that the possibility is open for them to do so. |
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One more note on the subject: I got told, that iD users mostly map from aerials, therefore the distinction "marked/unmarked" makes a lot of sense for them, as this is something, that can be very easily observed from aerials. A bit of wondering remains, how then are they spotting the unmarked ones? My guess, these come from connecting footways circling blocks, as I was told, that iD users prefer to map sidewalks as separate ways too.
I do not understand the bit about unmarked yet signalised crossings. I myself map pedestrian infrastructure, not paint on a surface. So for me the sequence: unmarked < marked/uncontrolled < traffic_signals, shows a clear progression in the amount of money or effort that was spent on location and the (perceived) safety it offers to pedestrians. Maybe that is a third scheme? Whether to call a crossing marked or uncontrolled is of no concern in this scheme, one or the other is just a term to be learned by heart. Still, "uncontrolled" truly is not something that is easy to grab ;) |
There are laws which define where pedestrians can cross. If there isn't a marked crossing at such place it's an unmarked crossing.
There is no such thing as unmarked signalized crossings but there are signalized crossings with worn off paint. |
Definitely, in fact, this proposal about whistle bans points out that whistles (or horns) are the norm at all public heavy rail crossings in North America unless specifically exempted.
Generally speaking, iD users use the same sources as JOSM users: aerial imagery, street-level imagery, surveys, local knowledge. Aside from sidewalk geometry, tactile paving on curb ramps make it easy to spot unmarked crossings. The curb ramps exist in reality whether the sidewalks are tagged on the roads or mapped as separate ways.
To reiterate, in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere, it’s common for a crossing to be unmarked and signalized by design. Sometimes this is because of a decidedly nonstandard treatment, like the unmarked crossings across these tiled intersections in Seattle. But completely standard intersections can also lack markings for crosswalks, such as this intersection in small-town Missouri.
Another very common situation in the U.S. is that a signalized intersection has a pedestrian crossing that lacks its own pedestrian signals. Pedestrians must wait for the cars’ green signal before crossing or risk a fine for jaywalking. Sometimes these crossings are also unmarked, but the law still allows a crossing unless a sign prohibits it. For example, this is unmistakably an unmarked crossing based on wheelchair-accessible curb ramps that are visible in both aerial and street-level imagery. It may have originally been marked years ago, but the markings were later paved over and never replaced. There are no pedestrian crossing lights; instead, the crossing is controlled by the main traffic lights. It would be very dangerous to jaywalk here, at the end of a freeway off-ramp where cars routinely speed around the curve.
Yes, I’m pretty sure “level of money or effort” was indeed the original concept behind the My examples are from the U.S. because that’s what I’m personally familiar with. But my point is that the messy state of crosswalk tagging is a consequence of early assumptions based on one region’s standards that have proven unreliable in a global context. It would be one thing if |
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Thank you for the pictures, the crossing in small-town Missouri clearly shows, regarding pedestrian infrastructure, municipal administrations can get by with less: funding, effort and (perceived or actual) safety. Myself, from a country that is party to the Convention on Road Signs and Signals, I'd not consider such a feature up to the local standards. Where there are signals here, there are markings too, I have yet to see that not hold. The progression is not only subjective, but firmly rooted on the ground. OTOH, people here debate, whether unmarked crossings can be mapped with certainty, especially mid-block ones, but not only those. Perhaps the orthogonality lies in what can be taken for granted and what should be special-cased? Usage of marked and uncontrolled overlaps here one on one, as far as I observe. The value chosen is seemingly due to editor templates. PS: The exact wording of the code of law that creates crossings where there is a crossroads might be helpful too? Or does this stray off-topic too much? PPS: What I wrote about iD users is just an account of what I got told; In my personal observations, iD users are just as diverse as the openstreetmap community as a whole. |
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As a fellow North American mapper -- I do not use |
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By the way, it isn’t terribly difficult to find unmarked, signalized crossings in Mexico (a Vienna Convention country) and South Africa (which is influenced by the Vienna Convention), though they probably are more common in the U.S. and other MUTCD-influenced countries. |
We are a bit off-topic for this presets project, but it is an engaging discussion. 😄 Here are some examples of U.S. state laws establishing crossings at intersections:
These statutes are primarily about legal rights of way, which becomes relevant in case of litigation. The more relevant authoritative documents are the engineering standards published by state and local departments of transportation, or the influential NACTO recommendations, but mappers are very unlikely to consult these documents anyhow. Footnotes
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I skimmed the linked U.S. state law and code. The OSM distinction between marked and unmarked crossings directly mirrors the language I found there on crosswalks. In my country, the law only knows marked crossings. Crossing the carriageway at an intersection is in no way different from doing it anywhere else. There are either no unmarked crossings, or there are a gazillion. (I personally mapped midblock unmarked crossings, where there are lowered kerbs or other indications.) I do not know, where the "uncontrolled/signals" proposal originated, but if it was in a place like mine, I'd fully understand, why the question "But, does it have signals?" was considered so important, as to turn that into a value for the crossing key, and "unmarked" only came as an after-thought; while in the U.S. perhaps the question, "But, does it have markings?" might be considered the decisive feature. Hanging on this thought, on orthogonality, and maybe why this issue is still open, last but not least, because this is a tagging-schema repository:
PS: The picture from Valladolid clearly shows a place in slow transition: There is an older crossing up the street, where the kerbs are lowered and the carriageway has a pinkish tone. The pedestrian signals that mark the crossing in front, themselves do not conform to the convention too. Also, on account of a visitor, they are not operational and people look at traffic and vehicle signals instead. Update: Scene with disfunctional pedestrian signals, https://youtu.be/p-p6B8-EZ_A?t=167 |
I think we’re actually on the same page there: openstreetmap/iD#8463 (comment). |
+1 If anyone cares about actually fixing the root of problem we need to find way to tag this things separately. Trying to fit it in one tag is not going to work well. Otherwise we will go in circles and produce data that is not actually so useful. |
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And as far as my recommendation for iD go: stop supporting any value of |
The problem is that for various reasons (for example legal implication, mapping from aerial imagery, 2D rendering etc) some people want to map road markings ending with various kinds of issues. For example using |
The tag proposal `crossing:markings` was recently accepted: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:crossing:markings Closes #589 Closes #507 Closes #568 See also #408
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As an iD translator in Transifex I recently noticed that |
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That string was added in 3525fe6. Note that the added preset was hidden. The main goal was to render icons also for the crossings which were mapped using the "traditional" tags (which might have been mapped by a JOSM user), see #390. A side benefit was that now these objects also got a matching preset, showing the dedicated preset fields in the user interface, rather than falling back to the "generic crossing" preset as it was the case until then. Note that this preset was created as a hidden one, meaning that only already existing map features were affected by it and iD users were continued to only be offered the preset which used the Please also note that there exists a proposed changed to iD's tagging presets in which would change iD to not use the |
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Thank you for your reply and explanation, @tyrasd. About the proposed change, I would rather see a structure with |
This is similar to ideditor/schema-builder#27, which proposes a mechanism to allow id-tagging-schema to mark a string as not for translation. That could be a special case of providing more prosaic background context about a string, particularly when the American English term is easily misunderstood by translators. It is confusing that a single Transifex project contains translations for four different repositories (also editor-layer-index and osm-community-index). If we ever move away from Transifex for openstreetmap/iD#7508, migrating each repository piecemeal would lessen the disruption.
Don’t give up hope yet! This is similar to the idea in #507. @tyrasd has expressed openness to deconstructing the crossing presets in favor of these fields but just needs some extra convincing through the proposal process. 😉 |
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Recently, more strings were added to Transifex which contribute even further to the confusion regarding crossings. |
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In my area de_AT these might translate as:
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It seems like this issue can be marked as resolved. Currently "Marked crossing" preset uses |
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This was changed with #590 / 80c5df1 Direct anchor link to relevant file: 80c5df1#diff-41416f8f17117f5b868d3e892541a6594867313c6fef7841d39a2027bed19bc8 |
Currently, the 'marked crossing' preset will tag the crossing with
crossing=marked. The wiki page forcrossingclaims that this is a duplicate ofcrossing=uncontrolled, and that the latter is 'approved', and indeed in terms of usage statistics it appears to have seniority. Thehighway:crossingwiki page claims that both are semantically identical.On the other hand, the wiki page for
crossing=uncontrolledclaims thatmarkedvs.unmarked"seems to be more specific", though it fails to provide a clear rationale for that claim. It implies thatuncontrolledis used for both marked and unmarked crossings currently, but this is not corroborated by other wiki pages on the topic, as far as I can tell.Should iD be adopting
crossing=uncontrolledas the canonical tag instead, that being the 'senior' tag which was already in wide use prior to iD's preset? Or is there a specific reason to continue usingcrossing=markedinstead?The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: