Guildford City Race

[graeme]

I've no idea what cross hatching means. Maybe its a special symbol? Sometimes in narrow NS road the standard OOB is quite hard to see, you may get only one or two thin lines. As with "uncrossable" walls in ISOM, if you don't use the right symbol, you can't penalise people for misunderstanding.

Beneath the grey "canopy" ISSOM is unambiguous -the normal running level is underneath and you are allowed to run there. So in this case the map says that you can cross the road under the bridge. (Running over canopies seems to be a grey area.)

There are problems with ISSOM: in some places one can cross "uncrossable" walls if you go underneath. Often this is technically wrong - if there's no uncrossable wall on the running level, e.g. at the entry to an underpass, there shouldn't be one on the map. in the SE corner the underpasses can only be accessed by crossing an "uncrossable" wall, and there's no way to tell from the map which one. There should be a gap in the "uncrossable" wall at the entrance to the underpass: the fact that the wall appears continuous when viewed from the out of bounds road is irrelevant.

Sometimes where there are two "running levels" one has to compromise.

Like Eddie, I don't want to criticise the organisers at Guildford. But I do want future organisers to get it right, especially whenever it involves no extra effort.

[andypat]

Graeme
Interested to know in what way you feel running over canopies is a grey area? I thought it was pretty clear that canopies were just that - canopies. Surely mapping anything else as a canopy just because you can run underneath it is incorrect?

(appreciate that some areas like the Barbican can pose special difficulties to the mapper - be interested to see how it works in practice)

[graeme]

A canopy is a building construction (with a roof), normally supported by pillars, poles or walls, such as passages, gangways, courts, bus stops, gas stations or garages. Small passable parts of buildings which can not easily be crossed by
competitors, shall not be represented on the map and shall be closed during the competition.

So, anywhere you look up and don't see sky because something manmade is in the way.

Grey due to the direct contradiction here...

Multilevel structures such as bridges, canopies, underpasses or underground buildings are common in urban areas. The cartographic representation of more than one level is in general impossible. Hence only the main ‘running’ level should be represented on the map. However, underground passages represented (e.g. underpasses, lighted tunnels) or overpasses (e.g. bridges), which are important for the competitors should be represented on the map.

So for an underpass on an OOB road, you map what you see as you go under (*not* what you see on google maps ). If the road is in bounds as well, you should represent it, but ISSOM doesn't say how.

[Gnitworp]

I think grey should represent any continuous structure (i.e.,forming an unbroken soffit or ceiling) above the 'running' surface below; a structure that is, by definition, inaccessible.

The Guildford 'canopy' was a covered walkway from a multistorey car par into a shopping mall one storey above the 'running level' main road below. I made a beeline to this, as I suspect, did most other people, assuming this was the way across the main 'OOB' street to be confronted by 3 kerb-edge barriers to prevent pedestrians crossing. There was no indication on the map how the walkway above was to be accessed, and it was not immediately apparent on the ground (although, I understand, some people did find their way through the car park and shopping mall on an unmarked route inside the dark grey of the buildings!). After scampering back and forth in bemused uncertainty, I eventually continued northwards to cross the main road at pedestrian crossings, Having done this I concluded on reflection during the rest of the race that I had been out of bounds (I had read the final details) and missed out the last 3 controls as an effective way of disqualifying myself.

The best solution would have been to have left off the canopy completely, as it was irrelevant to the competition, and probably wouldn't even have been noticed by people running under it on the pavement below. If it had been, I would have planned a route via legitmate underpasses from the outset. Obviously it would have helped if the correct hatching had also been used.

[maprun]

ISSOM suggests symbol 708 is used to emphasis that the underpass is a crossing point on an otherwise uncrossable boundary.

[King Penguin]

Like Gnitworp, I had been thinking the best solution would be to have removed it completely from the map.
The only viable alternative I can think of would be to continue the cross-hatching across it, rather than breaking the hatching.
Fortunately on course B I was not affected. Had I been on A or C I would have interpreted it as a viable crossing point.

[Gnitworp]

I agree, Maprun, although, in this instance, some of the somewhat complicated accesses to the underpasses may have been obscured by the purple.

[AndyC]

Troll Mode engaged

How about stopping running in Cities where we have these mapping issues -we could always try running in woods and moorland

With a few exceptions it always seems to be man-made features that cause annoyance - Oh to be able to run in virgin forest or moor where no such features exist

[andypat]

I might have interpreted that I could cross underneath the canopy as that wouldnt involve breaking the hatch - but i wouldnt have thought of trying to cross on top of it (it is mapped as a canopy after all not a bridge)

Graeme - still not sure why anyone would think they can run on top of a canopy? Not criticising your point - just not understanding it i think.

[Gnitworp]

Troll Mode engaged

How about stopping running in Cities where we have these mapping issues -we could always try running in woods and moorland

Solve the mapping/planning issues - shoot the Trolls

[AndyC]

Troll Mode disengaged (perhaps)

You can't mean me can you?



Sometimes I think " why are people getting wound up about the size of a dot or the exact colour of an overlay?"
"Run Forest, Run like the wind" (wish I could)
With the exception of a few, we are all doing this for pleasure with volunteers planning, controlling and organising. If I don't enjoy a venue or a planner I don't easily decide to go there again, If I find small things that are wrong I tell the relevant offical and try to forget about it.
I don't enjoy urban as much as traditional areas (and my battered legs and back like it less) so I don't go out of my way for such events but I still do some and enjoy some.

Let us concentrate on what we enjoy not what we don't

[King Penguin]

On the plus side, GO approached the multiple levels in a carpark by printing against each entrance the level at which it is accessible. Seems like a good idea to me.
2 years ago my son wanted to use different colours to indicate whether upper or lower level was the relevant one at part of an event he was planning, but this was refused by the mapper and controller. Without that, there was in fact a canopy in grey (just like at Guildford) where both levels were equally accessible and equally viable. With a control in that area he had to resort to "on top of" / "beneath" as control description qualifiers. Now cast your minds back to the other recent topic where it was argued that the mapping itself should be sufficient to identify the control position without having to refer to the control descriptions. It seems to me we do need to find symbols to indicate which levels are accessible / relevant. At Guildford what was required was "2 levels, neither accessible". In my son's case it was "2 levels, both accessible".

[graeme]

Graeme - still not sure why anyone would think they can run on top of a canopy? Not criticising your point - just not understanding it i think.

When you have two levels, it sees to have become the convention to use the ordinary running level and the "underpass" symbol (black dotted line). This seems to work OK, although often you have to cross something mapped as an uncrossable wall. We use this on the Bridges in Edinburgh, so do you along the canal in the West End, although its not strictly "Under the ground". But if I came across something like this (sorry about colour, no OCAD), I

jnk.png (2.23 KiB) Viewed 3536 times

I'd assume I could cross the grey section on either the road above or below.

When you have three levels, you'll need something more. I believe the solution London use is to map an underpass below a canopy, and you can run in the underpass, at the "normal" level and on top of the "canopy". Even though none of the levels are underground. As I said earlier, ISSOM mandates that you do something, but doesn't tell you what, this seems like a good idea.

[FRBlackSheep]

Its always dangerous when Trolls are under bridges, or so the Billy Goats tell me....

[Arnold]

On the London map (at least last year) we tried to fit the map to what the competitor would most logically expect, even if it's not 100% accurate to reality. For example we had two flights of stairs on top of each other with exits at all 3 levels, but we mapped them next to each other so that you could see all the exits.

Think we generally got it right, with one exception which is the end of the Millennium Bridge where to exit you need to double back onto yourself into a tunnel - sort of like an open hairclip if that makes sense. We mapped it as it was (with dotted lines for the mini underpass that was thus created) and that led to confusion as if you didn't see the dots (and didn't know it was the Millennium Bridge!!), you could have thought it was a dead end bridge. So with hindsight we should have cheated and mapped it just as an open U turn. That way no ambiguity when map reading, and people will understand it when they're there. Barbican generally follows the same principle, and Scarborough British Sprints had the same too - mapped the same bit of terrain in two different ways (for qual and final) depending on what you were supposed to do!

So bottom line think about what the competitor will need to know, and is likely to think, and map it that way. Which is why Guildford caused confusion - the canopy was specifically inbounds on an otherwise out of bounds road, right on the red line (on the A course). So the logical assumption was that the planner intended you to use it, and that you would figure out how when you got there.