1

Hi,

I’m currently mapping a number of alleys and backstreets in Cardiff, Wales. These are narrow and only allow one vehicle at a time, but are used mainly as pedestrian shortcuts (even though there’s no pavement). Should I tag these with “foot = yes” because service roads don’t imply a footway (or do they?). Or should I not tag anything to do with pedestrians at all, since these roads don’t have pavements?

You can see something similar on Google Maps here:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=beda+road+cardiff&sll=51.480424,-3.207498&sspn=0.001393,0.004128&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Beda+Rd,+Cardiff,+South+Glamorgan+CF5,+United+Kingdom&ll=51.483451,-3.215392&spn=0.001393,0.00515&t=k&z=19

Cheers,

Jon

2

highway=service would seem to imply foot=yes. Presumably you’re allowed to walk (against traffic) on any street without pavement (US: sidewalk); this would be a special case.

3

There are a lot of private or permissive service roads around, so I’m not sure what highway=service implies about access. Maybe better to specify explicitly if you know.
If the public have a right to drive along it as well as walk / cycle along it (ie its a public road), then you can tag it as access=yes, which implies foot=yes etc.

If you want to specify whether there is a pavement or not, you could use the footway tag: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Footway
Plus use the lanes or width tags to show that it is narrow.

4

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like Vclaws access=yes suggestion might be the best bet.

Cheers,

Jon

5

You could also use http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:service%3Dalley , which probably should imply access=yes.

6

access=yes is implied everywhere. OSM is mostly mapping public access ways, so we use the tag access only when we have restrictions.
foot=yes is also implied for most of the highway classes:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access-Restrictions

In your case, you could use highway=service (+service=alley)+surface=unpaved or highway=track+tracktype=grade1 (where surface is implied, see the wiki)