On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 9:52 PM, Nathan Edgars II <[email protected]> wrote: > This will require objective criteria for grading a route. Does SRTS ignore > complications, such as badly-designed bike lanes and especially sidepaths > decreasing safety, and kids choosing the sidewalk over even well-designed > bike lanes? How is safety of crossing a street determined? How about safety > of walking in the street?
Very good points to raise, but I don't think SRTS has any standard definition of a "safe route". I'm still learning about the program, but I believe the federal government distributes funds to states which administer the distribution, so definitions would likely vary from state to state. As a first cut I've decided to only route along highway=footway/cycleway/path/steps/residential/service, and to disallow routing along highway=service/residential if it crosses a highway=secondary or above. Obviously there's more to it then this, so I'd like others to provide their input. To be truly comprehensive we'd need to include width of outside travel lane, width of shoulder, etc., but we'll get there when interest has been shown. > One thing that might be useful in OSM would be marking crosswalks (or > intersections?) where a crossing guard operates during school commuting > hours. It appears that there is the supervised=yes/no tag for that, though there's only 1600 uses for that. > As a suburban example for discussion, I volunteer the local elementary > school: > http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=28.41182&lon=-81.49269&zoom=17&layers=M > Buena Vista Woods Boulevard has bike lanes, but kids generally ride on the > sidewalk. There is a crossing guard at the west end of BVW, helping kids > cross Apopka Vineland Road into the gated community. The path to the east > (through the park) is open during school hours, and allows kids from the two > subdivisions to the northeast to reach the school (I don't know if anyone > from Sand Lake Point, the northern one of the two, does, but I often see > kids and parents riding on the sidewalks of Sand Lake Cove and onto the > path). Thanks for your example. I've been experimenting with Terra Centre Elementary School, as they're the test case for SRTS in Fairfax County, Virginia: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=38.785521&lon=-77.297382&zoom=18&layers=M Over the summer they're adding a sidewalk to improve access to the school. Unfortunately, according to the distance maps I made this weekend, it doesn't increase the number of households that are in walking distance to the school! Perhaps with the new sidewalk they should do some redistricting... -Josh _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
