Pedestrian access in rural/remote areas
Greetings,
I'm a fairly new wayfarer, and very glad to be part of this community. I'd like to bring up an issue we face in rural/remote areas.
We all pretty much know that rural/remote areas suffer from lack of waystops, I know this issue first-hand since I live in such an area. I'd like to ask: what is the policy for such areas regarding the "safe access" criteria in those areas?
Ideally I'd like this criteria to be less crucial in rural/remote locations as we can't expect to see the top-quality sidewalks and pedestrian roads we find in major cities. People in villages move along-side the road, maybe on dirt or gravel and the traffic is low as no vehicles frequently use any road.
Also, a possible good suggestion would be the implementation of a "rural" or similar tag when suggesting/editing a waystop so the reviewers will know to be less judgemental on features expected to see in major cities.
I'll be happy to know your thoughts on this.
Comments
Yeah, idk what the consensus is but when I used to live in Maine, theres many towns that don't have sidewalks and people's houses are just out in the woods, so you walk or bike ON the road. That's just how it is. Pedestrians walk against the flow of traffic and bicycles travel with the flow of traffic like a vehicle.
I haven't been there in a long time and thus haven't submitted anything that doesn't have sidewalks but idk how people would vote on that situation.
If I know the area is rural/remote, I know that footpaths/sidewalks aren't always there, so if there is enough room alongside the road to reach the nominated stop and is safe for pedestrians, I take that into consideration. I am in Australia though so it may be different to where you are.
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https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/140910#Comment_140910
This is an example where the reviewer doesn't understand safe access and thinks that people here sit at home and if they exit that house they are "putting their lives in danger".
Im in the UK and there are lots of estates near me that have no footpaths either and people walk on the road. People who live closer to towns even 5 miles away might not even recognise that houses exist without pavements between them.
Many of these estates are low traffic and low speed and the roads are used to walk on but my Submissions near those are always get rejected for no pedestrian access
The phone company obviously thought there was safe pedestrian access when they installed this rejection
I wouldn't reject that for pedestrian access myself. You can clearly walk on the grass and once upon a time you'd have been expected to go inside it and use it to call people.
Just curious, is there safe access to this waypoint?
The waypoint: https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=36.097006,-86.876595&z=17&pll=36.097006,-86.876595
Street view: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6uxTBxXuU4GnPQzy9
Niantic is unlikely to respond to this. The system is meant for “local reviewers” to determine the criteria according to their local customs and understanding. The lack of “local reviewers” in rural areas is the fly in this ointment, but remains unaddressed to-date.
Personally, I’d be in favor of relaxing some of the guidelines for POI-sparse areas, but I’m not in charge of that.
That depends on whether that painted white line along the road margins delineates a pedestrian walking area or just a very wide road shoulder. I'll leave it to people familiar with the various country conventions to answer yes or no.
What is your opinion on that waypoint? Just curious.
My opinion is that it’s PRP. :|
It's literally a public phone booth.
Exactly. A mass produced, generic phone box, which these days likely beling to the adjacent property owner as the phone company are phasing out public pay phones. 1* submission.
Without a proper streetview etc I don’t think you can conclude it’s likely to belong to the neighbouring house.
It has been decommissioned, so it could be about to turned into some sort of community use - some acceptable eg library or not acceptable defibrillator. Certainly the K6 were very common but as each year passes they are becoming rarer.
Not a conclusion, just my experience of seeing a lot of these being nominated. As for the rest, agree with your "LFL - yes, Defibrillator site - no". If you read some of the supporting info for Defibrillator nominations, you get the impression that the first app people seeking one of these machines will turn to is the PoGo game........
Maybe you should reference the post the other commenter was asking about, not the OP.
I would also say that it lacks pedestrian access. Any thoughts on that? https://goo.gl/maps/38sKmXzCv8UWRxUS8
The Google maps link has a bike lane next to the sign, so some might give it pedestrian access for that. It's not really obvious it's a bike lane, though, you have to explore in Streetview a bit to determine it, so I would expect most reviewers not to notice. There could also be a debate about whether a bike lane counts as pedestrian access since pedestrians technically aren't allowed to walk on them according to traffic law in some areas. Imho, this one would depend on local custom and the reviewer mix it got. It would almost certainly fail if upgraded.