Talk:Tag:man made=quay

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Orientation

If this feature is represented by just an unclosed way, should it be defined to be low side on right side of way direction, somewhat like a natural=cliff?

One side of the quay being a body of water and the other a piece of land, orientation looks evident to me with no need for extra convention... Or am I missing cases where it might be useful ? --liotier (talk) 13:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Depth tidal variation

What about other properties for a quay? I suggest:

  • low_tide_depth=* for the minimum water depth next to the quay, on low tide.
  • low_tide_height=* for the maximum height from water to quay edge, on low tide.
  • tide_difference=* Self explanatory? Is there better jargon for this?
Seems unnecessary to me - quays, fairways and any other kind of seabed areas are only defined by their depths relative to chart datums. It would be more reasonable to tag tidal range on a body of water adjacent to shoreline - if at all needed. --VileGecko (talk) 06:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Rendering

Just wondering about the rendering (on OSM) of lines and areas tagged as "quay". So far I dont see any visual distinguish between a quay and a regular coastline. I also think a name of the quay should be visible. How do we suggest a change on how these are rendered? --Ascaaear (talk) 16:05, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. I use place=locality for a wharf with a name or number as it is rendering in default OpenStreetMap Carto and is the intended usage, but rendering a quay is more appropriate. LKAsahi (talk) 18:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that it is the man_made=quay that should bear the name; rather it is seamark:type=berth first and foremost with the possibility of a road or a land area adjacent to it bearing the same name - depending on local conventions. In most cases it is the berth (think a parking slot but for a ship) that bears the name, and along a single quay line usually there are multiple berths with distinct numbers or names. As for where to map a berth - ideally it should be a bounding box (or just a point) of a "parking slot" but superimposing it over a line of quay section or even puting a point on an adjacent land are also widely used on commercial nautical charts. --VileGecko (talk) 07:15, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
No, man_made=quay is seamark:type=shoreline_construction + seamark:shoreline_construction:category=wharf . seamark:type=berth are the many individual spots on one quay.
—— Kovposch (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Seemingly not limited to sea shores

In both the meaning of the word quay, its function, and the use of this tag on OSM it seems that the documentation is omitting that a quay can be found (often) on the bank of a canal or river as well. I'm editing it to reflect this. Was this an oversight or was the tag originally intended to be only used on the sea shore? (On Overpass Turbo it even looks like most of its use is along rivers or canals.)

For reference: Wiktionary defines a quay as “A stone or concrete structure on navigable water used for loading and unloading vessels” (emphasis mine). --JeroenHoek (talk) 09:58, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

  • Absolutely. Quay may be adjacent to any natural or artificial body of water. --VileGecko (talk) 12:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

No need for area=yes

Is area=yes really needed? I cannot imagine a closed way with man_made=quay which is not an area area but, please, proof me wrong. --Skyper (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

OOjs UI icon check-constructive.svg Agree. As vertical surfaces quays should only be instances of unclosed ways. Whatever horizontal surface adjacent to a quay is called a quayside and is not covered by this or any other tag. --VileGecko (talk) 13:34, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
That is not correct. A quay can be mapped as an area just like man_made=pier. The quay is the area extending landwards from the water where the actual dock-side activities take place. The quay is that whole area, not just the vertical edge rising from the water. This question is about whether area=yes is needed when mapped as area area, not if it should be mapped as one. --JeroenHoek (talk) 13:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
(750 of the 3,300 ways are closed; 300 of those have area=yes.) --JeroenHoek (talk) 13:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
We should agree first about what man_made=quay represents.
By quoting IHO S-4 "Regulations of the IHO for International Charts and Chart Specifications of the IHO" entry B-321.1: "A quay is a solid structure usually of stone, masonry or concrete (as distinguished from a pile structure) alongside which vessel may lie to work cargoes. It usually runs along or nearly along the line of the shore. A wharf is a structure similar to a quay but usually constructed of wood, iron or concrete and supported on piles. It may be either in continuous contact with the land or connected to the shore by one or more approach piers. On charts, they will usually only be distinguished by the name and when considered necessary by a bold line (0.2mm)."
Both paper and electronic nautical charts represent a quay / wharf as a thick line between land and water (see page 34, F-13) - the way I see this the point of this tag should be to denote the vertical surface separating land and water and to which a vessel may moor; it is essentially similar in nature to barrier=retaining_wall and natural=cliff and from a slightly different perspective natural=coastline. Pier on the other hand is an area protruding into the surface of the water and also bordering land proper on one side meaning that vessels cannot moor to that part of the outline of a pier. Therefore we should map pier as a multipolygon with unclosed ways which are suitable for mooring of ships also tagged as man_made=quay and unclosed ways which are not should miss this tag. Here properties of concern for a quay should be its surface, height, if it has open or closed face, availability and type of fenders (may be mapped separately), availability and type of bollards (also may be mapped separately) - those may not be consistent along the perimeter of a pier.
If we consider a wharf as a piled or solid protrusion into the water we may regard it as a relatively short and wide instance of a pier facing the the same characteristics - not every side of its area is suitable for use of vessels. --VileGecko (talk) 12:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
That's not how this tag and man_made=pier are used with closed ways. The word quay (and wharf) in English (and other cognate languages) generally refers to the surface on top as well, as in “I left you sitting on the quay” (I literally read this in a novel yesterday). If you want a tag that defines the exact sections of piers and quays alongside which a vessel can moor, you could define one. Redefining these existing tags doesn't sound very plausible. --JeroenHoek (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Use with key=mooring?

So how does quay work with https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:mooring?
I was just in the process of mapping a Rescue base here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=20/-16.48205/145.46044
I'd added a floating pier (although maybe that should be a quay?) & was going to add the mooring location for the Rescue vessel, but when I looked at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:mooring I spotted this page.
=mooring says use it as a way only, not a node, & =quay also suggests a way, rather than an area, so you'd have a line for a quay, with another line on top of it for a mooring? Don't think that's going to work? --Fizzie41 (talk) 01:46, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

mooring=* seems to be one of the earlier (just one significant change since the article's creation back in 2008) OSM tags which has not been really well-defined ever since. My impression is that mooring=* mostly tries to be an equivalent of the access=* tag, but also steps into being a berth (an area of water – essentially a "parking spot" for a vessel to occupy) and a quay (a retaining wall with water on one side and land on the other; the exact use of the man_made=quay tag also remains ambiguous) at the same time. It seems that the tag has been devised mostly with small craft in mind as the crews of larger vessels do not decide for themselves whether they can moor at a berth; if a berth is used by any particular type of vessel is mostly determined by adjacent cargo and transport facilities ashore - otherwise any kind of vessel can be moored anywhere there is sufficient depth and bollard SWL available including to other moored ships. I'd rather omit the mooring=* tag altogether; man_made=pier + floating=yes + area=yes + seamark:type=pontoon + seamark:pontoon:water_level=floating is the preferred tagging scheme here with the last two tags being used specifically for maritime mapping. --VileGecko (talk) 10:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)