Proposal talk:Passing places

Discussion

There has been a lot of discussion on IRC about this issue, but this hasn't reached any conclusions.

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• As I understand it, this is a proposal for new key passing_places=true? Sounds good and fits in with existing tagging with no changes. I understand it has been discussed on IRC, perhaps someone could note the gist here and perhaps move to a vote? Could the proposer also clarify what a passing place means. On very narrow, minor roads such as Yorkshire, UK, these are small areas where one or two vehicles can pull off the road to allow an oncoming vehicle to pass. On main roads, such as in Australia, these are strips of road, generally up-hill, where the single lane in one direction changes to two to allow faster vehicles to pass slower vehicles on a passing lane. Perhaps this tag could be used on both. MikeCollinson 09:58, 18 August 2007 (BST)

  There are also quite a few of such "passing lanes" in southern germany. I would think that passing lanes are really something different (and therefore should be tagged different) than passing_places. Maybe it's just a change in the lane=1-2 and nothing more? -- Ulfl 05:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

passing_places=true is what I'd use anyway. I'd not consider the slightly wider parts of narrow roads to be passing places, passing places in my mind are obvious paved extensions to the width of the road. The Australian thing sounds like a passing place, in fact, on the A830, there used to be signs which said "Use passing places to permit overtaking". Bruce89 13:20, 21 August 2007 (BST)

• I'm looking for clarification here. You're talking about roads that are so narrow that they are effectively one lane (not one lane each way) - ie you can't pass oncoming traffic without (partially or fully) leaving the road or using one of these passing places, correct? So is this a tag that says that a specific road has passing places, or is it really saying that the road is so narrow that it needs them? If that is the case, maybe we should be using some value in the lanes= tag to refer to a such a road (lanes=0.5? lanes=0? lanes=none?) DancingFool 04:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I would use lanes=1 to signify any narrow road, but ones with specific passing places would fall under passing_places=true. Bruce89 01:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

No, that doesn't work. Lanes=1 means one lane each way (look it up), which these roads don't have, otherwise we wouldn't need passing places at all. I still think we need some way of designating that a road really is just one lane. DancingFool 00:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I asked on IRC a long time ago, and Blackadder said that lanes=1 should mean 1 lane in total. I realise that is different from what the wiki says, but I'm not sure what the official line is. Bruce89 02:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone clarified the wording to "Total number of physical travel lanes making up the way." on 13 March 2008. Alv 07:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• I've tried to clarify the proposal section a bit. Do we want to simply mark the whole road as "passing_places=yes" or do we want to tag the individual passing places (or both)? -- Ulfl 05:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Both, (depending on how accurate you want to be). For instance the normal way would have passing_places=true, but individual nodes (or even ways) representing each place could be tagged the same way. Bruce89 01:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer tagging the actual passing places (nodes in a way). --Wabba 07:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest it is practical to have both. One mapper can simply mark the way "passing_places=yes" without having to stop. A following mapper can take the time to actually stop and map nodes to show the actual locations. MikeCollinson 08:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• It also occurs to me that we should explicitly add "passing_places=no" for ways to the proposal. There are roads in Yorkshire marked thus (example photo[1] - User:Tms13) and it would be useful for assigning costs in routing software. MikeCollinson 08:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this for narrow roads only 1 lane wide? If so, I'd just use lanes=1. Bruce89 01:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking this would be usefull for marking 1 lane roads for which it would be impossible to pass without a passing place. I travel down a lot of 1 lane roads but for most of them passing is possible without the need of a passing place. Thewanderer 10:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I think so too and that the value for marking the exact position of passing place on a node should be defined, too. No one has voted yet so I'll modify the proposal. Alv 07:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Some passing places have directionality - I know at least one 2-lane road with passing places - photo[2] - which are usable only by the traffic in that direction. The example here is mainly used by agricultural vehicles to allow following traffic to pass. There's only a couple each way, so this would be on the node form of the feature. Perhaps this needs to be considered? User:Tms13 15 January 2009

Proposed rendering

The table on page Proposed_features mentions that roads with passing_places should be rendered as an alternating white/road color dashing. This proposal didn't have any such render definition. Roads under construction are already dashed as "no color/road color" and I think the dashing would only clutter the map. Which roads even would get it?

• If lanes=1 and passing_places=no?
• If passing_places=yes

I'll make a subvote out of it and oppose it. Alv 09:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What's already used

Browsing the tagwatch I found only 12 uses of of passing_places=*. Also, I found that the Proposed_features/Passability seems to be already in somewhat widespread use, at least in some countries; over 2400 occurrences for UK, yet it too hasn't been voted on. It's definitions are partly dependent on the need for passing places but they don't define their existence.

In the US

In the US, these are called 'turnouts' and are quite frequent along rural highways where passing is otherwise not allowed. For example, US101 in northwestern Washington and Seward Highway (AK1) in Alaska. --Cohort 01:56, 8 July 2007 (BST)

I remember a particular highway in Kansas with one lane in each direction that had sections with two lanes in each direction for passing. How long are these turnouts? Are they just a place for a slow truck to stop and allow others to pass? --Korea 13:57, 17 August 2007 (BST)

Turnouts are merely a wide spot on an otherwise narrow shoulder for a slower vehicle to stop and allow others to pass. Places where roads widen from two to three lanes should probably be shown as such with lanes=3 or similar --Cohort 10:12, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Indeed, this is the way I would represent that too. Syntax differences apart, turnouts appear to be the same as what I'd call a passing place. Bruce89 13:16, 21 August 2007 (BST)

I've just returned from a trip to Canada and their turnouts are the same as passing place in the UK pray4mojo

tag for a way

This tag does not mark particular passing places, but simply says a section of road has frequent passing places? Do I have that correct? If that is correct then could we assume most narrow roads have passing places? Some of the roads in my area the intersections become the passing places and they are frequent enough that it's not a problem. Maybe we should only mark long stretches that don't have passing places? --Korea 12:31, 22 August 2007 (BST)

This isn't for marking passing places individually, that is for Subsidaries to deal with if it was possible to find where each place was afterwards. Most narrow roads have passing places, but I don't like "implied tags" such as highway=unclassified meaning passing_places=true unless stated otherwise. Most minor narrow roads don't have "official" passing places anyway, just bits that are slightly wider. Bruce89 14:27, 22 August 2007 (BST)

I like having standard assumptions. It decreases typing, increases the chance that people will put in a value, and therefore increase accuracy. The key is to have standard assumptions documented somewhere. I also think the assumptions should be what most people would assume. I assume most single lane roads will have wide areas or intersections. --Korea 20:07, 24 August 2007 (BST)

Indeed, they mostly do, but roads with implicit passing places should be tagged with this also. I suppose all unclassifieds could imply this as long as they also have lanes=1. Bruce89 20:18, 24 August 2007 (BST)