Bloomington Indiana

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I just added some max_speed= tags for #OpenStreetMap in Bloomington, Indiana. (urbanists.social)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by markstos@urbanists.social to c/bloomington_in@midwest.social

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I just added some max_speed= tags for #OpenStreetMap in Bloomington, Indiana.

Our city code has a default speed limit 25 mph. Exceptions are published in a table in the city code.

It seems possible that adding the correct lower-than-default speed limits from city code to OpenStreetMap could reduce the likelihood that routing algorithms would route car traffic there, which could in turn keep the street safer for other road users.

Ref: https://library.municode.com/in/bloomington/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT15VETR_CH15.24SPRE

@bloomington_in

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[–] pleaseclap@urbanists.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@markstos @DemonHusky @bloomington_in

Is that not your suggestion, here?

"It seems possible that adding lower-than-default speed limits to OpenStreetMap could reduce the likelihood that routing algorithms would route car traffic there, which could in turn keep the street safer for other road users."

[–] markstos@urbanists.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@pleaseclap @DemonHusky @bloomington_in In context, the rest of the post says that exceptions are published in city code and provides an example link to the table in our code.

I’m suggesting to use real speed limits from city code. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

[–] pleaseclap@urbanists.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@markstos @DemonHusky @bloomington_in So the situation is, lots of low-speed streets are currently assigned a higher speed by default in OSS, and fixing that is a helpful service?

That's my bad: sorry for being a deviant who assumes the worst

[–] markstos@urbanists.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@pleaseclap @DemonHusky @bloomington_in Yes. Many routing services, including Google Maps, use OpenStreetMap data to some degree. The more accurate the data is, in general the better the algorithms can work.

If you know of times where you think you haven’t been given the best bike directions, the issue might be solved by updating something in OpenStreetMap. Which like Wikipedia, anyone can edit and it’s not to hard to get started.

[–] DemonHusky@better.boston 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@markstos @pleaseclap @bloomington_in last year a group of us we confused why Cambridge was so poorly rated on the People For Bikes city ratings and realized that the city changed most street's speed limits. After going through and fixing them in OSM, this year Cambridge jumped up significantly to be rated much closer to what I'd expect.

[–] markstos@urbanists.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@DemonHusky @pleaseclap @bloomington_in Ah, so the correct speed limit needed to be lowered in OSM?

[–] DemonHusky@better.boston 1 points 1 month ago

@markstos @pleaseclap @bloomington_in yeah, I think when the state database was imported many years ago it included the at the time correct speed limits for streets, though most of them were unsigned. Then a couple of years ago the city reduced most streets with signs to be safer, but no one got around to fixing OSM.