Parking lots take some space in many places, and they may be strategically placed to link many roads around them. However, most free parking lots are obsolete in times of no congestion, or lightly used in regular times. They can be used to provide better routes from one road to another as is the case in so many parking lots that I came across.
My suggestion is to add an option to make a parking lot road routable. In other words, it can be used to route traffic as is the case with any regular road. Of course, the default behavior for any PLR should be "not routable", but editors can change that to "routable" if it seems appropriate.
Of course, such feature should be made available with some guidelines like not applicability to paid parking, local laws preventing routing through parking, parking time restrictions, and vehicle type restrictions. Many of these guidelines are already available through existing features, but others should become proper editing rules for the suggested option.
Providing routable PLRs will save editors so much in having to change PLRs to other types of roads to make them routable where necessary.
Parking lots take some space in many places, and they may be strategically placed to link many roads around them. However, most free parking lots are obsolete in times of no congestion, or lightly used in regular times. They can be used to provide better routes from one road to another as is the case in so many parking lots that I came across.
My suggestion is to add an option to make a parking lot road routable. In other words, it can be used to route traffic as is the case with any regular road. Of course, the default behavior for any PLR should be "not routable", but editors can change that to "routable" if it seems appropriate.
Of course, such feature should be made available with some guidelines like not applicability to paid parking, local laws preventing routing through parking, parking time restrictions, and vehicle type restrictions. Many of these guidelines are already available through existing features, but others should become proper editing rules for the suggested option.
Providing routable PLRs will save editors so much in having to change PLRs to other types of roads to make them routable where necessary.