correction: this was actually using Esri imagery, so alignments would be to Esri

Hi skfd,

You added some foot=use_sidepath tags on roadways in Toronto. This tag refers to a _legal_ requirement for pedestrians to use a sidewalk if there is one present. I was unable to find such a law in Ontario, or a bylaw in Toronto specifically. Could you comment on https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/foot-use-sidepath-in-ontario/129980 if you know such a law?

Thanks,
--Jarek

Hello,

When you draw sidewalks as separate ways, please also update the road way (like osm.org/way/178826208) to have sidewalk=separate

(The current sidewalk=both tag means that the road has sidewalks on both sides but not drawn as separate ways)

Hello,

I saw that you have used the tag channelised=yes, for example on osm.org/way/1161788455

I recently created a wiki page for this tag: osm.wiki/Tag:channelised%3Dyes basing it on my understanding as well as a forum thread https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/is-a-channelized-river-still-a-river/127905

Since your usage of the channelised=yes tag predates the wiki page, I wanted to ask if what I wrote in the wiki matches your use and understanding of the tag (to avoid a situation where the wiki would retroactively redefine your tag). Does it? Please let me know if you'd make any changes to the wiki page.

Thanks!

Hi -- thanks all the detailed surveying you're doing in the GTA!

Quick note about the change to surfaces here. You've added surface=concrete:plates to the sidewalk. This value actually refers to prefabricated concrete plates that are made offsite and then trucked to where they are needed and placed with a crane.

The vast majority of concrete sidewalks and paths in Ontario are instead poured in place: liquid concrete is poured onto the ground in between formwork, then once it hardens, control joints (for stress relief) are cut into it. This gives the appearance of separate "plates", but the plates might be different lengths and they don't have eyelets they would have been lifted with. So I think surface=concrete is the better tag?

See osm.wiki/Tag:surface%3Dconcrete for details and photos. Let me know if this makes sense or if I have something terribly wrong!

Well, low-rise except for the tower on College, that is...

Hello! In this changeset you created a relation for the branch of Sixteen Mile Creek that flows through the centre of Milton (osm.org/relation/13103547) with the note "not the main 16 Mile Creek". I wanted to ask about this - is this local knowledge of understanding?

According to Geographical Names Database https://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique?id=FCOTA , the branch through Milton is the main Sixteen Mile Creek, while the branch that flows southwest along the 407 is the East Sixteen Mile Creek https://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique?id=FEHOQ . Conversely, the 1996 watershed study https://www.conservationhalton.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/16MileCreekWatershed_HaltonUrbanStructurePlan-compressed.pdf linked on https://www.conservationhalton.ca/watersheds/ seems to refer to the Milton branch as West Branch, but to me it's not clear on where the "main" trunk with no branch subname begins.

Do you know the local understanding and/or usage in Milton or Halton Region?

Changeset comment continued: where final layout was not clear from City imagery (because it shows the rebuild in progress) I left the cycleway tags in place (since it'll be either lane or better), and removed parking tags (because parking might not be there in the final layout).

Having passed through here last year, I am reasonably confident what's tagged now is not wrong, but I haven't done a detailed survey. Local surveys to add parking details and/or refine cycleways are welcome/appreciated.

(I removed the phone number because the company website now lists a different one. The address and email are still the same on the website.)

Hi, thank you for the response, I appreciate it.

My initial goal with the crossing=no tag was to instruct routers not to have pedestrians cross here, rather than e.g. to communicate with other mappers that there really isn't a crossing here.

Routers incorrectly routing on the road rather than the sidewalk and crossing the street in unsafe places rather than on crossing ways is still an issue today, e.g. osm.org/directions?engine=graphhopper_foot&route=43.723463%2C-79.458302%3B43.722979%2C-79.456049 (and it's the same with all 3 routers on OSM.org: GraphHopper, OSRM, Valhalla)

But I think I see the issue you're pointing to: with a crossing=no tag at an intersection, a router can't know if they shouldn't route pedestrians along one street, along the other, or both. And in this case, routing along Dufferin Street would be valid, as long as the side of the street isn't changed.

And while I would say that a good pedestrian router shouldn't route along Dufferin Street itself given that sidewalks are mapped along it, equally, that good router wouldn't route along Dufferin Street to get anywhere from the T intersection.

So tagging the intersection itself crossing=no would be ambiguous for any router that attempts to read it, and not needed for a router that correctly prefers sidewalks.

And tagging crossing=no north and south of the intersection would only be useful for communication with other mappers, since it wouldn't change the situation for the routers. And at least in Toronto we haven't had a problem with mappers mapping crossings that don't exist, so I don't think it's particularly important to do so.

So I don't think a change here is really necessary now.

Thanks again!
--Jarek

As a point of interest, this changeset and the related changeset 164738300 are the result of about 35 survey notes and 20 photos

source was also a mix of Esri and Mapbox aerial imagery, sorry for missing it in the source tag

Hey there, quick question. In this changeset you've deleted a crossing=no tags at
osm.org/node/432744847/history

I was wondering if this was because a tool was complaining about them?

I've used crossing=no tags to reinforce where there is no pedestrian crossing at an intersection, because I found that pedestrian routers sometimes tend to leave sidewalks and use roadways to cross a bigger street at locations where there's actually no crossing. This usage is also supported by the OSM wiki: osm.wiki/Tag:crossing=no?uselang=en

So if a tool is complaining or not supporting these, that would be good to know.

Hello,

This is a signalized crossing, with traffic signals and markings. It is a couple of years old so it's not visible on all imageries yet - it is on the City of Toronto imagery which is available in JOSM. Please check OSM history to read changeset comments before changing signalized crossings to unmarked ones.

Hi andrewpmk,

In this changeset (a long time ago) you mapped the channelized section of Mimico Creek around the 401/427 interchange as a drain, for example osm.org/way/19454008/history#map=16/43.67463/-79.57007

I am now discussing remapping it as waterway=river, on the reasoning that, even channelized, it is part of the river: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/is-a-channelized-river-still-a-river/127905

Please let me know if you have any opinions on this.

Changes to mark St. Thomas Expressway extension as under construction and downgrade of Centennial Avenue have been reverted in osm.org/changeset/163821836 and osm.org/changeset/163822024

hgv=destination, maybe.

Possibly most hgv=no in Toronto (tagged based on the "crossed-out truck" sign) should be hgv=destination? But definitely this one, since it's a prominent use

Is there really hgv=no on Gladstone osm.org/way/15803443 - right next to the Cadbury factory that sends out shipments via truck?

oh yeah, I removed the alt_name:fr because it's misspelled oops ("Linge" vs "Ligne")

Hey, so, as a follow-up, I posted about this on the forum https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/announcement-request-for-comments-naming-sidewalks-in-toronto/124205 and no one in Toronto seems much interested and international commentariat is against it, so I won't be doing it anymore