Changeset: 141987508
There is no railway crossing at this place
Closed by giggls
Tags
created_by | JOSM/1.5 (18846 de) |
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source | survey |
Discussion
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Comment from HellMap
Hello,
Please do not remove or split paths that cross a railway if they are actually used and exist. This breaks routing. An illegal crossing should be tagged with `crossing=no` to prevent routing that does not allow rail crossings outside designated locations. But nothing here physically blocks access to the crossing. There are hundreds of examples like this across Latvia.
Thanks
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Comment from giggls
While it might be common to map illegal crossings in Lithuania it is definitely not in my country.
This said if you actually *do* map such stuff which I still do not consider a good idea please tag them at least something like access=no.Regards
Sven
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Comment from richlv
Lithuania is some 100km away, the mapping practice there might indeed differ ;)
But in general OSM is about mapping what is on the ground, with appropriate access tags. Same as roads or paths on private property - they should get correct access tags, not be removed. -
Comment from giggls
Of cource this is Latvia but nevertheless this did not look like on the ground like an existing path either.
I actually *know* a little bit about OSm as I have been contributing for 17 years now.
However as I already said: This way should be tagged access=no either way. -
Comment from HellMap
On the ground, this is a well-used path: https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=255754737334209&focus=photo and https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=6393645144089678&focus=photo .
`access=no` implies that you are not able or allowed to pass through here. That is not true - this is still a crossing, just an informal one with no infrastructure. Tagging no access would stop valid routing (that understands `crossing=no`). As I mentioned, there are hundreds of these around the country. The difference is that this is not a `railway=crossing`, but a `crossing=no` (without the main tag), because there is no infrastructure and this is not legally defined as a crossing and so its use is "your own fault".
I'll bring this up with local community (again), see if we can establish more consensus or agree on additional access tagging.
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Comment from giggls
Well access tag is about what is allowed to do not about what is possible to do.
I do not know about the legal status of crossing railways in Latvia but it is completely illegal to cross a railway at spots without a corresponding traffic-signs in my country (Germany).
A very similar example would be tracks and paths ending at a motorway where it is strictly illegal to use them for the general public.
An example would be this way:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/106966611Regards
Sven
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Comment from HellMap
Very briefly - it is de facto allowed to cross here in Latvia.
To elaborate, the law talks (somewhat ambiguously) about crossing railways at designated crossings and goes into detail about what a "crossing" is and what "dangerous rail sections" are. But it's all very legalese and ambiguous and hardly enforced. So this path here is definitely not a dedicated crossing in a legal sense. But no one is going get fined or stopped for using it. In fact, it's common practice and the only reasonable location to cross in this area. In other words, it's a de-facto crossing https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:access#Mismatch_between_law_and_de_facto_status . These used to be untagged or tagged with `railway=crossing`. But we now choose to tag these as `crossing=no` rather than `railway=crossing` to follow its legal status. This already restricts routing. But we don't add `access=no`, because this significantly hinders pedestrian and cyclist routing in Latvia (this wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem in, say, Germany, where railway crossings/bridges/tunnels are common).
In contrast, here is an example of an informal crossing, but where there *is* an actual sign stating "railway crossing not allowed"
https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=298472319457894&focus=photo . So here `access=no` is appropriate even though this crossing is commonly used. -
Comment from giggls
Well basically cycle-routing *did* lead us this way:
https://bikerouter.de/#map=16/56.9988/24.2664/osm-mapnik-german_style&lonlats=24.263241,56.996132;24.26624,57.003135&profile=trekking-ignore-crBTW only reason I went looking at the data exactly at this place afterwards because I think this was not a good idea.
In practice it was impossible for us to cross here reasonably fast with our 20kg of luggage when travelling by bike trough the baltic states by bike last year.
I will thus see if I can modify bikerouter profiles to ignore routes passing crossing=no nodes.
This said it looked completely crazy for me from my German point of view to map such a thing as any kind of "crossing".
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Comment from HellMap
Yeah, there is a pretty vast difference between German and post-Soviet infrastructure and culture. If we didn't map these places as crossings, we would be missing half the crossings in the country. I imagine if you didn't map them in Germany, no one would even notice.
And, to be fair, this wasn't mapped as a crossing - previously, it had no tags and now it's an even "stronger" `crossing=no`. And the way itself is a `path` and not a `footway`. Routers should really be accounting for these and giving them a low priority. While `crossing=no` is not a prominent tag, it's certainly not a new tag. May be some day we'll get consensus and a standard scheme for such locations. Unfortunately, there are very few mappers in countries like Latvia while countries like Germany have the most mappers and lead many discussions, so consequently a lot of it is biased towards what you would find in countries like Germany. And if there aren't any local examples, then it would be difficult to get actionable opinions for such examples due to how much background info is required (as this changeset indeed shows).
I'm still fixing many crossings like this that are tagged as full `railway=crossing`, which mappers commonly add. That's how ingrained in everyone's mind it is that crossing railways anywhere is basically the norm. I suppose it's a culture shock for many people. But it's not illegal and what little legal "guidance" is given is not enforced or treated seriously.
For this place, a road bike profile would have given you the small path along the highway https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=1665375620555465&focus=photo . But this location really has no good alternatives. I cycle here myself often and short of going along roads, there really aren't any good options. Unfortunately, that's the case for a lot of infrastructure in Latvia. Routers generally have a hard time because footways and paths end abruptly, don't lead anywhere, lead through terrible locations, etc. And we don't have that many mappers to maintain it all either... but I digress.
Ways (3)
Nodes (2)
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