Street Moderation System

Ideas
1

I’m copying this out of an email I received. It’s a very complex idea that needs a lot of community feedback.

From the ongoing discussions in the CityStrides forums and my own OSM editing experience, it’s clear that private streets are creating challenges for both data accuracy and the user experience.

For runners, private streets are often the biggest pain points. OSM tagging can be technically correct, but CityStrides users generally care more about whether a street is runnable or walkable than about its ownership status. Many streets are tagged private simply because of a sign, yet local GIS data or on-the-ground reality often show they’re open and used by the community. In many cases, I’ve found roads marked “private” where residents are welcoming and wave as you pass.

Implementation Idea: CityStrides Private Street Overlay. Since private streets make up only a small fraction of the global network, CityStrides could introduce a lightweight override system:

Data Extraction

  • Pull all OSM ways tagged access=private (and possibly access=permissive)
  • Store them in a CityStrides overlay table with metadata:
    • way_id (the ID of the Way record in OSM)
    • citystrides_status (runnable / not runnable / unknown)
    • edited_by (CityStrides user ID)
    • updated_at

User Input in the UI

  • When a user clicks a private street, offer: “Mark as Runnable / Not Runnable”
  • Use votes/consensus to determine status
  • This doesn’t alter OSM—it only affects CityStrides completion logic

Display Logic

  • If OSM says private but overlay says runnable, count it
  • If overlay says not runnable, exclude it
  • If no overlay data, default to OSM

This approach keeps CityStrides aligned with OSM while empowering the community to define what “completion” means in practice. It reduces frustration, avoids unnecessary tension with OSM mappers, and gives runners a more accurate and motivating experience.

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Could this also be used for the unsafe trunk road concept which is also a pretty small number of the total roads in each city?

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This could be interesting. Also, I don’t think it would be too much more work to identify users that have previously run streets marked Private, and you could automate some prompt to ask them to contribute their opinion on the runnability - i.e., it was totally fine :white_check_mark: , or I had to jump a gate :cross_mark: , or I got told off :speaking_head: , or I don’t remember :man_shrugging:

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Seems a bit complicated to maintain, though I have no experience there. Feels like you could end up with situations with people running potential issues, though. I realize the vote system is likely supposed to account for this, but what if I caught the “nice neighbors” on that private street and the next person encounters the “mean” neighbors that don’t like the runners? I have run a private subdivision before and been waved at. I have run the same subdivision other days and been told the community was private and I should leave. I have never been threatened, but I could see this potentially being an issue, simply depending on the people who are out and about the day someone new arrives. Maybe it won’t matter if I still have the ability to mark manually complete? What if I switch to Hard mode and the neighborhood is marked private in OSM, but the votes say it’s ok, but it’s only the person who caught the “Nice” neighbors who voted and no one else has voted (maybe they forgot) and many others have issues?

Might be more effort than it’s worth, too. How many in any given city are actively running these streets? I am sure there are very large cities where it could be multiple, but don’t those usually have smaller fragments (not sure the right word, but I know, for example, the Burrows of NYC are separated as are the arrondisments in Paris) anyways? I don’t know the number, but feels like for probably most users there would only be a very small handful possibly impacted by this update and maybe more time than it’s worth to implement?

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I’m in favor of this. I’ve gotten into back and forths with OSM editors wanting to mark streets private over a store bought “no-tresspassing” sign, despite there being a street sign present and/or city GIS map clearly showing it as a public street. While I’ve usually been able to win most debates, some editors can be very difficult, so it it would be great to have a work around. Thanks.

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What isn’t clear to me if is this would work on street level (a CS concept) or on way level (an OSM concept). On street level there will probably be issues where only some private sections are accessible, and others not. But putting it at way level might create a lot of hassle.

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I’ve been mulling this idea on-and-off since it was posted. It is by no means cut-and-dried in my mind, but I’m opposed to this change, for a couple reasons.

What’s being proposed here is crowd-sourcing the “runnability” of a street, where that term doesn’t mean literally “can a person run along it”, but rather some combination of that plus legality, safety, etc. You wrote that

While I expect that may be true for the vocal minority, I’m not sure it’s true for the silent majority. I know it is not true for me. Even if a street has had a few CityStriders have a friendly experience on it, I don’t want to run it if it is truly private property. (One annoyance, admittedly, is that some public roads are actually called “private ways”! )

So, if the tagging system is more geared toward this is actually a public road, I’d be more on board with it. But, as described, it seems more like I ran this road and everything was ok, and I am less ok with that. I don’t want to have to run on private property to complete a street/city, even if avid “voters” here seem to think it is ok.

Just my 2 cents!

As always, James, thank you for your thoughtful approach to everything about this great site.

2 Likes
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Hi Tim. I agree with you in that the determination should not be subjective. It should be street shown on an official town/city map or at least with a town issued street sign present. Note, “Private Ways” usually only means parking is restricted and/or that the homeowners are responsible for the upkeep of the street. But they are usually still publically accessible streets. This is another thing that I get in debates with OSM editors over, who mistakenly try to make them private roads. Thanks.

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I’ve had someone who lived on a street like this email in, requesting that I get their street removed from CityStrides. So, that debate you’re having with OSM editors would come up with at least some of the people who live there as well.
(I’m not trying to take a stance on the situation here, just sharing a coincidental experience)

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I walk a private street pretty much every weekend. Some have just gates, some have gates/signs, some have just signs, and some have nothing other than homeowners stopping me and telling me to leave immediately, that it’s a private area, despite no signs. Typically, these are roads that are about to dead-end anyhow, so I don’t really care that much. If on my way back out, I can see some difference in where the road switched to private, I will update OSM.

Even if private streets aren’t added to the street counts to make a city complete, it would be nice if they were visible and could have notes attached. More than half the time on the HOA-style private roads, a friendly wave generally rewards me with being allowed to keep walking the ‘mini-city’. It’s the more rural dead-ends that people have become proprietary over and not worth trying to come back with a GIS plot risking a bigger confrontation than the first time.

I have temporarily ‘un-voted’ until we see what other variations people might offer for a possible poll.

~ Jesse

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I would certainly agree that private roads are my biggest bugbear, or at least one of them. If a street is not gated, and reasonably short, but signposted as private, I will just do it, but I have come across streets like that that are quite long and lead to a single house, and then it just feels intrusive, regardless of any potential danger (which in this country is more likely to be dogs rather than weapons).

It feels like it might be a nightmare of a system to manage, as I have certainly done some roads that others wouldn’t touch, but have also avoided some that I know that other people have done, so it’s largely a matter of attitude, but I think it’s worth trying, at least.

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I generally take the view that I will run a road if I “can” and am not likely to be arrested and/or assaulted for so doing. As such if I come up against a gated road where the gate is locked then clearly that is absolutely private. Other times I have decided against it have been on some traveller site roads (and a few times regretted doing so for the verbal abuse you get) and one time in Portugal were so many dogs came out to “meet” me none of which looked “friendly” I decided that road was “private” ! Another time, I went past a security guard (clearly looking other way) but on the way out told me I should not be in there. I marked those roads as private in OSM.

However I always find the OSM treatment of private to be very confusing and often misleading. There are certainly numerous “private” roads near where I live where you always see a load of walkers/runners on them despite what it is classified in OSM.

Take Tag:access=private - OpenStreetMap Wiki it starts of saying

“The access=private tag is indicating that the object is not to be used by the public. Access is only with permission on an individual basis.

Road or similar object does not need to be blocked with gate or similar obstruction to be eligible for this tagging.”

Bit further down it goes on to say (in a sort of contradictory way)

Note that access=private is intended to indicate that access is restricted, not whether the object is privately owned or not. Use ownership=private or operator:type=private to record this kind of status. For example, a privately owned road with public access may be tagged like any other road with public access – without access=* tag, or with the explicit access=permissive.

Note that access restriction can be legal, gate or fence or other physical restriction is not needed. Mail delivery and trash collection services may be allowed to use access=private road.

Unfortunately, some mappers have widely misused access=private for any feature that they consider “private” even when access is not restricted. Driveways to individual residences are often thought of as “private” in the sense that the public is not really welcome and privacy is expected, but this cultural norm is not the same as access being explicitly restricted. In areas where access=private is overused like this, the meaning of the tag is diluted and there is no way to distinguish which features have actual restricted access. Ideally this broken data would be fixed.

So basically totally unclear! When is a “private” road only ownership=private and when is it not. Is this really saying driveways are “fair game”. Fortunately they are excluded from CS regardless of access status.

Clearly there are different levels of private and often times where the signage might say “private road, no parking” but if I am two feet, I don’t care at that point in time if I can still access the road no problem.

I often see “Private Road” signs especially on cul-de-sacs / dead-end roads. Clearly such roads would not be "worthwhile” on a “normal” run but for Striding well there is no gate, no security guard, no irate residents so yeah I will nip in and out and “do it”. In the main I won’t need to do so again. However does that “Private Road” sign really just mean ownership is private. Clearly if you want your post, Amazon deliveries, somebody to fix something access is not “restricted” when there is no gate. Yeah if I see Private Road, I won’t park my car there for sure and wander off and always feel mostly that is what those signs want you not to do.

So yeah I do think this is a good “idea”. Probably though I would rather OSM be clearer and possibly add some sort of tag to indicate whether a road is accessible full stop as well as a clear indication of actual ownership status. If I see a gate, I will try and add it to OSM. I don’t tend to “unmark” roads marked as private unless I consider the road to be a more of a “throughfare” and on a few times have used the ownership=private way and so removed access=private or maybe the half way house of just setting motor_vehicle=private. Basically if I am not sure I will leave it.

I note due to the query used on CS access=private but foot=yes does not work to give it nodes on CS. You would have to remove the general access=private and set foot, motor_vehicles individually etc explicitly. So that does not “help”.

I guess another problem is if the gate is open one day. I think great will nip in and “do it” and might mark doable by this idea. Of course the next day (or even 10 minutes later) the gate closes again and if you have marked it as runable when open, it clearly won’t be in general. A good example of this is roads serving offices or shops. After hours tend to be locked and I dont view a road should be doable in CS unless can do so 24x7.

So yeah good idea but really I think OSM should be made clearer here. Perhaps needs more examples of best practice around the world. Certainly we don’t want to “encourage” running “private” roads when you should not. However in terms of “danger” some of these trunk roads and/or roundabout with exits to motorways/freeways that have started to appear in CS are more likely to leave you in trouble than the vast majority of “private” roads I have encoutered on my runs.

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PS other practical markers for me are

  1. Is it on Street View
  2. Does it look used on heat maps (Strava and/or Garmin)