The other day, I came across a coffee shop that doesn’t have an accessible entrance, as there is a step. However, it has a sign indicating a wheelchair ramp is available. How would you tag this? The wiki has an example for ways but not for amenities.
The wiki has an example for ways but not for amenities.
For the amenity itself, I’d tag it as wheelchair=limited, with additional wheelchair:description=* explaining the situation (e.g. wheelchair:description=there are steps, but owner has signed that wheelchair ramp is available on request if that is removable ramp).
If the ramp was usable by wheelchair user themselves without any external help (including having to call to owner to provide portable ramp), then it would be wheelchair=yes.
Note that wheelchair* tag on amenity is not only about entrance, but about being able to access most of the amenity. wheelchair:description should describe any noticeable issues the wheelchair user may encounter.
As for the highway=steps way that the ramp is bridging, you’d additionally tag ramp:wheelchair=* or ramp:portable=*, as you note is shown in examples.
2 Likes
Starting with the goal of supporting useful, preference-based routing, we prefer to avoid wheelchair=* tagging at the POI level, as it does not encode enough information for that purpose.
If there is only an entrance=* node and no separate highway=steps way leading to it:
On the entrance=* node,
- Add
barrier=step - Add
ramp=yes - Add
ramp:wheelchair=yes - Add
ramp:portable=yes
This reads as “This is an entrance. There is a barrier - a step - present. There is a portable ramp for wheelchairs available.”
In this way, the information of “This entrance is accessible via a portable ramp” is encoded as properties of the entrance.
If there is an entrance=* node and also a highway=steps way is mapped separately leading to it:
On the highway=steps way,
- Add
ramp=yes - Add
ramp:wheelchair=yes - Add
ramp:portable=yes
This reads as “There is a step (or multiple steps/stairs) leading to this entrance. There is a portable ramp for wheelchairs available.”
Additional tags on the entrance itself are not necessary in this case for routing, as they are already applied at a higher level of detail, encoded as properties of the steps leading to the entrance.
Note that tagging these properties on the highway=steps way, if it exists, is necessary for routing. Even if the entrance is tagged with the ramp tags, a wheelchair-focused router will not be able to reach that entrance unless the tags are added to the highway=steps way.
As for mapping that the availability of the portable wheelchair ramp is signed, I would use ramp:signed=yes.
3 Likes
just to clarify, who is “we” here?
There’s a tradition in OSM of tagging both that the amenity has a facility (e.g. outdoor_seating=yes) and mapping that facility directly (leisure=outdoor_seating, with other tags). I would expect that exactly the same approach could apply in this case - POI-level wheelchair tags ** combined with more detail.
**and wheelchair:description mentioning a ramp - 600 in UK/IE alone.
3 Likes
Apologies, I should have specified - “we” here is “us working at TCAT” 
It’s fine to have wheelchair-related tags on POIs, but they should be specific: wheelchair=(yes|limited|no) is not really detailed enough to be reliably useful, whereas something like toilets:wheelchair=* can be.
1 Like
Telford College of Arts and Technology?
3 Likes
My first match in search engine gave Tokyo City Air Terminal. 
But then I got this idea of looking up the poster profile, and lo and behold, I think it might be about The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology at the University of Washington.
1 Like
I guess we need to improve our SEO 
Yes, Taskar Center at the UW - if you click on my name, you’ll see the popup with that info:
…and there’s more on my OSM profile.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback - I agree, “we” could be misleading (am I claiming to represent myself, some organization, or the consensus of the wider OSM community?) so I’ll improve my phrasing.
Back on topic: I noticed a 
from @MHohmann - which part do you disagree with?
I don’t think the existing accessibility tagging approaches are ideal, so I’d be happy to hear alternative ideas!
1 Like