Documenting in use tag: cycleway=sidewalk - review is welcomed

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@ezekielf

Pedestrian only sidewalk & bicycle only sidepath

Combinations like this and the (hopefully rare) sidewalk+pedestrian lane are why I think a footway:right=* tag on the roadway would be more robust than trying to cram more information into the overly specific sidewalk:right=* key.

Pedestrian lane on the road

In other words, what may have once been an indication of a sidewalk parallel to the roadway (as in highway=footway footway=sidewalk) has been muddled to mean only that there’s something sidewalk-like somewhere in relation to the roadway, maybe even in the middle of it. That leaves us in an unfortunate quandary, where the key doesn’t mean what it says on its face, “side” can mean “inside” instead of “beside”, and the most obvious workaround is tantamount to sidewalk:both=yes_really. …

Or maybe we should abandon the idea that the roadway can say specifically what’s on either side. *:right=separate can just mean that, if there is anything beside the street in the real world, it’s mapped as a separate way, go look for it.