Hi, there are many LGBTQ-pride related crossings nowadays which have crossings with rainbow-markings or other LGBTQ-flags (example: https://imgur.com/35k8cBi).
How should those be mapped? If there is clarity about this, the corresponding MapComplete-theme should be updated to reflect the new tagging (and the old values should be retagged).
Pietervdvn (talk) 13:37, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
I did now, but I didn't see a clear-cut answer between all the talk about the paving stone and the direction of the stripes. Pietervdvn (talk) 16:19, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
I think this is an issue not limited to crossings. For example, how do we tag a rainbow coloured cycleway (such as this one from Utrecht featured in a BicycleDutch video). I think if we want to clearly tag these, a proposal of suface colours would be needed.
On the other hand, some are more mural like, and would probably be best to tag them tourism=artwork --Popball (talk) 17:09, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Extended rainbow colors@Pietervdvn: There's already some limited usage of colour=rainbow, though this article prefers surface:colour=* for crosswalks, since I guess colour=* could be ambiguous when highway=crossing is dual-tagged with something else. Regardless, you might be interested in the rainbow=* key that I've been using to clarify which colors are part of the rainbow pattern. (I'm doing the same on some nearby sidewalks too.) – Minh Nguyễn💬 22:30, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
How about we split it into different cases? Case 1: The photo in the Examples section of the main page (link), and the two on this page (12) should each be thought of as two different objects in the same place: a set of crossing markings, and an artwork. Notice that the regular markings still exist; the rainbow is just painted between them. This is presumptively very deliberate, as the main page points out: "the white lines are still required for it to be a legal crosswalk (in the US)." So those ways/nodes should be tagged crossing:markings=* zebra/lines/whatever, crossing:markings:colour=white, tourism=artwork, artwork_type=mural, and surface:colour=rainbow. Case 2: In the non-photo rainbow images on the main page (123) (are there any real-world examples?), the regular crossing markings are absent, completely replaced by the artwork. So they should still get tourism=artwork and artwork_type=mural, but this time with crossing:markings=rainbow. Just "rainbow," not variations like "lines:rainbow" or "zebra:rainbow;" TagInfo reports 24 existing uses of "rainbow," and one each of two of the variations. Incidentally, crossing:markings=rainbow ought to imply both crossing:markings:colour=rainbow and surface:colour=rainbow. Case 3: Any markings with a completely ordinary shape but rainbow colours (again, are there any real-world examples?) should have the same crossing:markings=* value as their non-rainbow counterparts, plus crossing:markings:colour=rainbow. I'd argue that the artwork tags shouldn't be applied in this case. --Adambyte (talk) 01:37, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
The main page says that crossing:markings=surface is for when the surface, i.e. the material that the floor is made of, has changed. That is not true in case 2; rather, the rainbow is painted on top of the same material. --Adambyte (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
The illustration used for the article shows crossing marking styles using different terminology than the actually approved and used values (e.g. what's called zebra in the illustration would actually be tagged as ladder:skewed, continental is zebra, standard is lines, solid is surface, etc...)
Woazboat (talk) 20:35, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
@Woazboat: This illustration comes from a study funded by the Federal Highway Administration surveying local highway departments across the U.S. about the crosswalk marking styles they use. The American traffic engineering field has more or less standardized on the terms in this study, except for the "solid" style, which turned out to be a misnomer for surface treatments like brick pavers. Indeed, what Europeans call a "zebra" crossing is what Americans call a "continental" or "striped" crosswalk; "zebra" instead refers to the slanted version. The proposal originally adopted these terms but moved away from them as a concession to mappers used to existing tagging schemes. It would've been very confusing if crossing=zebra had to be translated to crossing:markings=continental instead of crossing:markings=zebra. – Minh Nguyễn💬 23:00, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
Ideally someone could upload a modified version of this SVG that replaces the American English terms with crossing:markings=* values. Alternatively, this intersection diagram depicts four different marking styles at the same intersection, though there's a lot going on in the diagram, so I don't think it would be very intuitive at a small size. – Minh Nguyễn💬 23:43, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
I updated the image to . I kept the values in lowercase to match the actual tagging. Wardmuylaert (talk) 16:04, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Painted "Bricks"?
I have seen a few crossings painted with a pattern of brick-shaped outlines. They are not actually bricks/paving stones, just a grid of paint. In the examples I've seen, it has a "brick colored" edge, with a white filling. I cannot find examples at this moment that are on open imagery, but here's a blog post about some: https://wallingfordseattle.blogspot.com/2008/06/crosswalk-art.html
@Pkoby: If it's a one-off artistic design, then I'd tag it as a piece of artwork in addition to crossing:markings=dots. The dots are already highly unusual for an American crosswalk, but they did have to paint something in white in order to qualify it as a legal marked crosswalk. That said, I'm reminded of this crosswalk and many others in the same neighborhood that are painted with a honeycomb pattern in addition to the legally recognized parallel lines. I used crossing:markings=lines;honeycomb in these cases, since they appeared to be intended to mimic a standard treatment, albeit still nonstandard. – Minh Nguyễn💬 17:17, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Checkerboard painting
I have come across this kind of painting: Mapillary
It is a crossing used by both pedestrians and cyclists.
In my native language, French, this drawing pattern is commonly called damier which means checkerboard. So I've tagged it with crossing:markings=checkerboard (plus crossing:markings:colour=green).
As it is told on the main page: "More values may be documented as they are discovered", so I propose to add this value.
Of course, if this type of drawing is better known by another name in English, this one will prevail. --Blef (talk) 13:38, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
@Blef: If that's a normal marking style in France, then checkerboard seems perfectly reasonable to me. Though I think it's called a "draughtboard" in British English (compare sport=draughts). – Minh Nguyễn💬 23:04, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
French "passages cloutés"
In France — and in Switzerland or Belgium — there used to be a lot of « passages cloutés »: the literal meaning is a nailed passage, it's a type of pedestrian crossing delimited by two parallel lines of slightly rounded nail heads or rivet heads. It was so frequent that the term is still sometimes used as a generic meaning for a pedestrian crossing, even if it's a zebra.
Nowadays « passages cloutés » are way less frequent but you can still find some — e.g. in the historical center of some cities, or near some tramway lines.
Old "passage clouté" in Paris in 1939
Modern "passage clouté" in Lyon
While it kind of looks like the painted "crossing:markings=dots", I think it's still somehow a bit different as the convex metal parts are usually round and can be slightly protruding from the surface (which is usually asphalt or sett).
So I'm wondering if I should tag them as something like "crossing:markings=nailheads" or if another tagging would be better? Maybe "crossing:markings=dots" + "crossing:marking:material=metal"? -- FoeNyx (talk) 18:07, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't think that that confusion is avoidable. The facts are intrinsically nuanced and confusing, so the tags can't accurately represent that without also being confusing. Maybe we should revise the description for the "surface" entry in the values table on the main page, to explicitly warn against conflating the legal markings with a surface that they may bound, and link down to the Fireman's Park crossing in the examples section. (I think that should be crossing:markings:material=concrete, though, because the entire line is one solid block.) —Adambyte (talk) 03:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
What are these markings called in your region?
This type of marking, showing staggered bars, are fairly common in my region, and is used for unsignalized crossings. Do you have anything similar in your region, and what do you call them?
For now I've been tagging these as crossing:markings=zebra:staggered.
Series of regularly spaced, staggered longitudinal bars, placed parallel to the road center line, with gaps of equal width between bars.
What do you think? --GOwin (talk) 02:50, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
Bicycle crossings
Bicycle crossings often have markings (often dotted lines or dashed lines). I think crossing:markings=* applies to bicycle crossings as well as pedestrian crossings. In fact, all *way=crossing may have markings. --Peter Elderson (talk) 22:12, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Proposal: Add crossing:markings=piano
Hello all,
I’d like to propose the addition of a new value for `crossing:markings`: **piano**.
This marking style—often referred to as "piano keys"—is used widely in countries like Australia for raised crossings and pedestrian priority zones.
Why add it:
It's visually distinct and used in official guidelines (e.g., Main Roads WA).
It’s already in use in OSM: TagInfo link
Example locations: (in the GitHub issue due to a block placed by the OSM wiki)
This page uses the term "pictograms" in crossing:markings=pictograms (~ 5.5k uses currently on taginfo), but the recently approved Proposal:Road marking revision uses the scheme road_marking=symbol (~0.1k uses) which can then be detailed with the tag symbol=* (symbol=bicycle, symbol=pedestrian, etc) and there are also destination:symbol=* and variants (~112k uses). Should we consider harmonising for "symbol" and deprecate "pictograms" ? (if so we could then use the scheme crossing:markings=symbol + symbol=*) --FoeNyx (talk) 15:33, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
That sounds right at first glance. On the other hand these are two different shemes, anyway, crossing:markings vs. road_marking. So different tag values might be appropriate. But basically, I tend to agree with you; same term for same object. --Chris2map (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
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Woazboat (talk) 20:35, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
. I kept the values in lowercase to match the actual tagging. Wardmuylaert (talk) 16:04, 19 July 2023 (UTC).svg)
Old "passage clouté" in Paris in 1939
Modern "passage clouté" in Lyon
