streetcomplete
Is there a verge between the roadway and sidewalk here?
I did a search I couldn't find a pre-existing ticket, apologies if this has been raised before.
General
Affected tag(s) to be modified/added: verge:left/right=yes/no Question asked: Is there a verge between the roadway and sidewalk here??
Checklist
Checklist for quest suggestions (see guidelines):
- [x] 🚧 To be added tag is established and has a useful purpose
The tag is useful for measuring "walkability" roads which have a verge may be more desirable since they provide more separation between the sidewalk and the roadway.
- [x] 🤔 Any answer the user can give must have an equivalent tagging (Quest should not reappear to other users when solved by one)
Either a verge exists or it doesn't.
- [x] 🐿️ Easily answerable by any pedestrian from the outside but a survey is necessary
- [ ] 💤 Not an overwhelming percentage of quests have the same answer (No spam)
This one I'm not sure, it probably does vary a lot by city and even within a city.
- [x] 🕓 Applies to a reasonable number of map data (Worth the effort)
Ideas for implementation
Element selection: highway=trunk|primary|secondary|tertiary|unclassified|residential|service && sidewalk:left/right/both=yes|separate (if where there is a sidewalk along a road)
Metadata needed:
Proposed UI:
Additional quests could be "what is the surface of the verge here?" verge:left/right:surface=* and what is the width of the verge here verge:left\right:width=* based on AR.
There was some discussion on verges in #3613, other than that I couldn't find anything relevant either.
Easily answerable by any pedestrian from the outside but a survey is necessary
would word "verge" be understood by a typical person?
I think I am relatively good at English vocabulary and I was not aware of its meaning.
I am still not entirely sure even after reading the wiki page.
The tag is useful for measuring "walkability" roads which have a verge may be more desirable since they provide more separation between the sidewalk and the roadway.
not really convinced by it - as far as walkability would be influenced for me a boolean presence of verge (which may be a tiny strip of dirt used for parking) has no strong influence
would word "verge" be understood by a typical person?
I think I am relatively good at English vocabulary and I was not aware of its meaning.
I am still not entirely sure even after reading the wiki page.
To be honest I've never heard of the term until I read the OSM wiki. In the Australian English translation we'd translate it as "Nature Strip", other languages would need to translate into the local language. Otherwise if a language doesn't have a word for it, they could use something like "is there space in between the edge of the road and the sidewalk"?
not really convinced by it - as far as walkability would be influenced for me a boolean presence of verge (which may be a tiny strip of dirt used for parking) has no strong influence
The parking quest already asks about parking on the sidewalk/pavement, so ideally would cover the case where a verge is also used as car parking.
Essentially this is about is there any space between the road and the sidewalk which acts as a buffer, now the yes/no is not as useful as having the actual buffer distance/width, but I think as a quest it's still worth asking yes/no and then asking to survey the width as the next quest.
For me, being someone with young kids, walking on a sidewalk which is directly adjacent to a 70km/h road with zero buffer ie. no verge is a stressful, but somewhere with a 3m grass verge slightly less stressful.
Verge presence is definitely a big factor in pedestrian stress, so getting the information into OSM (via verge:<side>=yes|no|separate / verge:<side>:width=*) would be great! By chance, I was talking with a coworker yesterday about this exact thing, since it's something we're assisting the collection of.
If it's considered too niche (I also was not personally familiar with the term "verge" and there's a lot of different local names for these buffer areas) then tagging the details might be more appropriate for SCEE?
Just throwing some ideas out here, haven't fully thought them all through - there are other types of separation between sidewalks and roadways - maybe =verge could be a value for a buffer:type=* tag riding along with the buffer<side>=yes|no|separate tag on a footway=sidewalk way? buffer:left=yes + (buffer:type=verge / buffer:type=parking / buffer:type=outdoor_seating) etc.
Just a heads up: I reworked https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:verge
Feel free, of course, to improve it further!
[Edit to add: There'll be some good conversations happening on the Discussion page 😃]
would word "verge" be understood by a typical person?
Yes and no. Wikipedia acknowledges scores of common words for this concept in English. Each place I’ve lived has a different word for it, which most people will understand, but practically none of the other words are understood at all. I don’t question the choice of verge=* as a key at all, because among all these words, “verge” is well-understood jargon in traffic engineering and urban planning, and laypeople can often figure it out due to the phrase “on the verge of”.
If it’s like this in American English, in a country where verges are the norm, whatever you call them, then I imagine that there will be some translation difficulty in other parts of the world. But it’s far from the only potential lexical gap when it comes to the elements of a streetscape, which most laypeople never think about. For that matter, some languages have plenty of regional terms for sidewalks and crosswalks while others have no reliable terms for them at all.
A circumlocution like “space between the roadway and sidewalk” is a good idea regardless.
A circumlocution like “space between the roadway and sidewalk” is a good idea regardless.
Except in cases when there is no sidewalk, like in that A85 example in the wiki, where it would be producing even more confusion.
Except in cases when there is no sidewalk, like in that A85 example in the wiki, where it would be producing even more confusion.
Only show the quest if sidewalk:<side>=yes|separate
I also was not personally familiar with the term "verge"
This term is extensively used in the UN convention on road traffic. There are a few translations linked here https://unece.org/road-traffic-and-road-signs-and-signals-agreements-and-conventions - but any ratifying party will have a translation, e.g. Austria.
All I can say, the term is not trivial to translate and so - as a matter of fact for any not-native English - not trivial for to understand. Perhaps our term Bankett is close? Pictures here https://www.google.com/search?q=stra%C3%9Fenbankett
should it be verge:*=no?
https://www.google.pl/maps/@50.0812703,19.889105,3a,75y,309.73h,66.55t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sRY-gVsVX-RWY22SZoObyQg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D23.449744930786736%26panoid%3DRY-gVsVX-RWY22SZoObyQg%26yaw%3D309.73399943615254!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcyMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
And that is also verge:*=no ?
https://www.google.pl/maps/@50.0808191,19.8889418,3a,75y,211.1h,79.29t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s29KjzsIUcHWPQMm4i7NspQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D10.710909145058139%26panoid%3D29KjzsIUcHWPQMm4i7NspQ%26yaw%3D211.09601895688323!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcyMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
I have feeling it would be more clear and useful as
sidewalk_separated_from_road:*=grass
sidewalk_separated_from_road:*=other
sidewalk_separated_from_road:*=chain
sidewalk_separated_from_road:*=no
etc.
Verge seems still too confusing to me.
And another (from the same area): is it really not a verge?
if yes - is it too late (10k uses) to redefine
Presence of grass or other vegetation verges at the sides of a highway carriageway.
on wiki?
https://www.google.pl/maps/@50.0811798,19.89073,3a,74.1y,119.74h,74.8t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-an6lED5ObTyx3N_GFEYaQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D15.197010927296418%26panoid%3D-an6lED5ObTyx3N_GFEYaQ%26yaw%3D119.73835339321498!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcyMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
sidewalk_separated_from_road:*=
The separation key (used by Map complete) is similar, so maybe sidewalk:*:separation .
no answer, closing
also, commented on https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Key:verge&diff=prev&oldid=2889200
I consider verge tag as useless or at least poorly formed in its current form
sidewalk:*:separation seems like more useful one, may be worth opening issue for it if it does not suffer from design issues