Proposal:Grab rails
| Grab rails | |
|---|---|
| Proposal status: | Proposals with undefined or invalid status (inactive) |
| Proposed by: | Pietervdvn |
| Tagging: | grab_rail:left; grab_rail:right; grab_rail:behind=horizontal_wall_mounted;vertical_wall_mounted;diagonal_wall_mounted;foldable;armrest |
| Applies to: | node,area |
| Definition: | A grab rail is a support to help wheelchair users to transfer from their wheelchair onto the toilet |
| Statistics: |
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| Draft started: | 2025-03-14 |
| RFC start: | 2025-03-14 |
Proposal and rationale
Some wheelchair users are dependent on grab rails and other supports to move from their wheelchair onto the toilet. Some of them have a strong preference or need for this grab rail to be on a certain side of the toilet (e.g. someone who is paralyzed in their right arm will need the support to be on the left). For others, certain types of support are harder then others.
Why not handrail
The term handrail is associated mostly with steps, ramps and elevators. A grab rail or (grab bar) is the proper UK-english noun, which is also used in the official documentation such as the building codex.
Tagging
| Image | tag | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| grab_rail:<right/left>=horizontal_wall_mounted | A wall-mounted grab rail in a horizontal position (or which has a horizontal part). | |
| grab_rail:<right/left>=vertical_wall_mounted | A wall-mounted grab rail in a vertical position (or which has a vertical part). | |
| grab_rail:<right/left>=diagonal_wall_mounted | A wall-mounted grab rail in a diagonal position (or which has a diagonal part). | |
| grab_rail:<right/left>=horizontal_wall_mounted;vertical_wall_mounted | A wall-mounted grab rail with both a horizontal and vertical part; or two wall mounts of which one is horizontal and one is vertical | |
| grab_rail:<right/left>=foldable | A foldable wall mount, also known as drop-down grab bar or drop down grab rail | |
| grab_rail:<right/left>=toilet_armrest | The toilet has (fixed) armrests | |
| grab_rail:<right/left>=no | There is no grab rail on this side |
Both sides are considered separately. If there are multiple grab rails on one side, they are combined with a semicolon. "Left" is left when sitting on the toilet.
In some cases, there are also grab rails behind the toilet. In this case, grab_rail:behind=* is used. The default assumption is grab_rail:behind=no
Using prefixes
grab_rail:<left/right>=* will be used on amenity=toilets if all the toilets of the cluster are dedicated to wheelchair users or if all the toilets have an identical grab rail setup. This will probably be the case if there is only a single toilet. Note that a toilet might have a grab rail, but might not be designated as "wheelchair accessible" and/or might not meet the (legal) requirement to meet wheelchair=yes - hence usage without wheelchair-suffix can occur.
wheelchair:grab_rail:<left/right>=* will be used if this grabrail setup is found in the wheelchair-designated toilet (and if there are other toilets represented by the object which don't have grab rails).
toilets:[wheelchair:]grab_rail:<left/right>=* will be used if the object is some amenity (e.g. a restaurant), but which has toilets=yes. The wheelchair middle part will be added as above.
We recommend in being explicit and marking left and right separately, even if they are identical. :both means that the grabrail setup is identical on both sides.
Using grab_rail=* without left/right is semantically unclear: it might mean that the described setup is on both sides of the toilet or that it is on only a single side of the toilet. As such, we consider this a tagging mistake.
Examples
This toilet would be tagged with grab_rail:right=horizontal_wall_mounted and grab_rail:left=foldable
Features/Pages affected
External discussions
Comments
Please comment on the discussion page.