The Heartbreak Prince
@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 @DemonHusky @bloomington_in
You’ve seen your specialty bike routing algorithms. I’m glad they’re good algorithms, however
your first post is about misrepresenting speed limits in OpenStreetMap (which is a community resource, yes?) to effect driver behavior, and what systemic effects this would have for every user of every tool that uses OpenStreetMap
Even if you don’t think this will lead to congestion on the same roads, I’m not sure it’s ethical
@markstos @DemonHusky @bloomington_in I haven’t seen a routing algorithm’s code, but a preference for arterial roads can be explained solely by speed limits
@markstos @DemonHusky @bloomington_in
Besides speed, there’s probably also an “is there a bike lane” check, which would mitigate the problem a bit in places where the main roads mostly also have bike lanes
@markstos @DemonHusky @bloomington_in
What DemonHusky said:
A map app suggesting a route for a bike will try to minimize time via the slowest streets. For a car, it will try to minimize time via the fastest streets (which are usually more direct in terms of distance)
So if the algorithm suggesting a route thinks all streets are the same speed, bikes and cars will be suggested the same low-distance routes, which will usually be routes featuring excessive speeding by drivers
@DemonHusky @markstos @bloomington_in Bike routes will get more direct, but “better” may not be applicable, since the more direct routes also encourage drivers to speed
That said cities tend to add bike lanes only after people get annoyed with bike traffic, so maybe down the road it might add some lane miles
@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