How to tag *unusable* sidewalks?

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this is not a big problem, extra complexity for other tools, editors and data consumers is a bigger issue

note that at least iD mappers would be likely confused by this new tagging and probably not see it - the same goes for all other editors going with “show typical tags in nice formatted views”

or note=sidewalk not usable for pedestrians as it is 24/7 full of illegally parked cars

D: sidewalk=both_but_blocked_by_illegally_parked_cars_all_the_time ? (similar to what @IanH mentions but mentions illegality)

if sidewalk is never passable then it de facto does not exist

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if sidewalk is never passable then it de facto does not exist

I think the sidewalk-property describes the presence of physical infrastructure, not whether it is usable, dangerous, etc.
In this particular instance it is confirmed that the sidewalk is usable sometimes (OP wrote that illegally parked cars are occasionally towed)

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33

I think this is what we cannot agree on. The existence of a sidewalk and its illegal use by cars as a parking space are 2 completely separate things. There have been some good suggestions how to tag this, but it seems they are not satisfying the OP, because routers wouldn’t use them. So this is basically a problem of tagging for the router. I can totally relate to that, and maybe something like class:foot could be pushed (similar to class:bicycle) to discourage usage of certain ways for pedestrians, but denying the existence of a sidewalk is not the way to go for me, sorry.

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Any tagging scheme that could be perceived as implying the sidewalk does not exist would eventually be removed by a new mapper or other community member. Whether they understood the original intention or not.

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I agree it would be better to distinguish between physical infrastructure (highly verifiable, and useful also for rendering and other purposes) and usability (important for routing but more subjective, and potentially subject to more frequent changes). What’s more, with sidewalk=no,

  • for the casual mapper it is impossible to see if the sidewalk is blocked only right now or always
  • the tag would need to change when the city starts enforcing the rules, even though the physical infrastructure hasn’t changed

In my view the best options that have come up so far are the various ideas around obstacles, irregular parking, or practical width. They’re not in the poll so I haven’t voted.

Why not use one of them and then try and get routers to use them? (I guess a real world example of a road with a lot of traffic would help here)

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If anything, if marking parking at all, I’d make sure it is marked as illegal, e.g. sidewalk:both=illegal_parking. However regardless of it needs adding support in all (old, current and future!) routers and other tools. It’s never-ending effort, so I want to avoid that.

I’d imagine that by default routers will simply route pedestrians on all roads which have sidewalk* !~ no|none, which would fail to work correctly with such tags and will happily route pedestrians where they should not be routed. So IMHO, routing should be correct even with such dumbest routers (as all new ones will start as, and many will remain).

That is the main reason why I’ve given up on my own idea of sidewalk:both=not_usable too (and haven’t even put it in the poll)

I agree that sidewalk:*:obastacle is less bad than sidewalk:*:barrier; however suffers of same “never-ending effort” problem as above.

There is a big leap between informal and illegal, though. For other suggestions, also see “never-ending effort” problem as above.

Ah, I should really check iD in more detail. I’ve always assumed that if it cannot interpret the tag that it show it in row form, and not hide it? If it hides them, that sounds like a horrible design decision that is likely to break all things that are not in “most popular” list.

or note=sidewalk not usable for pedestrians as it is 24/7 full of illegally parked cars

Hopefully iD does show that note tag at least? I’ll try to do some checking later this weekend.

That seems to be major difference in opinions. Sidewalk is in my definition some surface that pedestrians use to walk on the side of (otherwise dangerous to them) road. If they cannot walk on it, then it is not sidewalk, but a parking, shoulder, verge, or something else.
At best, if not usable for intended purpose, it is disused:sidewalk=* (which is currently my favorite idea). Same as shop=greengrocer which has completely stopped selling things and nobody works there anymore for years is no longer a shop=greengrocer+produce=none but instead disused:shop=greengrocer (even if all physical shop infrastructure is still there!)

Because of “never-ending effort” problem defined above. It is not just current routers etc. It is all the new ones that will ever be written, and it is all the old ones that people use on old devices and cannot upgrade as newer versions require better hardware/OS. I’d like to avoid leading them to their deaths by default just because they didn’t upgrade on time :wink:

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So, after reading all suggestions, my current best match is:

highway=residential
sidewalk=no
disused:sidewalk=both
note=sidewalk not usable for pedestrians as it is 24/7 full of illegally parked cars
  • highway=residential is self-explanatory I hope
  • sidewalk=no - there is no actual sidewalk that pedestrians may use. It solves the main issue of routing (why we tag sidewalk=* at all) and It should also help with iD editor and others that hide less popular tags from mappers not to make catastrophic changes.
  • disused:sidewalk=both (or =left or =right) - makes it known in no uncertian terms that there is however existing physical infrastructure made for sidewalk, but it is not currently usable. It may easily become usable in the future (as it is disused, and not abandoned or worse). This should clearly define the physical state and appease users who are against just pure sidewalk=no as partially technically incorrect.
  • note=sidewalk not usable for pedestrians as it is 24/7 full of illegally parked cars (or other text - it might be blocked with waste disposal containers / recycle bins or other things) - this is human readable explanation which would hopefully be shown to mappers in various editors which should hopefully make them more careful not to damage existing mapped state (I’ve checked and iD at least shows it, as do JOSM and Vespucci). Also existence of note key might be checked programmatically by some editors like StreetComplete and potentially damaging quests might be skipped if it exists (as most roads will not have note text).
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38

iD by default only shows tags it can understand and hides tags from user. The idea is to hide tags from user and be a general purpose editor which is far more ambitious than what SC tried. Often it works, but when it fails it leaves mappers confused and unaware that they caused data loss.

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In fact right now even sidewalk tag is not shown at all, see Add `sidewalk` field by tyrasd · Pull Request #454 · openstreetmap/id-tagging-schema · GitHub

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I’ve never seen the tag list closed :slight_smile: Maybe I’ve opened the list one day and did never close the tag list since then - I can’t remember. But I’m a regular iD user and iD has never hidden any tags from me:

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40

I created a new test account in private window and this section is collapsed by default, except cases where iD failed to match any feature to the line/point.

If opened and not closed - it will be remembered.

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I’ve checked it now: iD remembers the state of the tag list. If the list is closed at closing iD then it will be closed at the next use of iD. If the list is opened at closing then it will be opened at the next use.

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42

There is a big leap between informal and illegal, though

not necessarily, an informal feature could be legal, but often these are illegal. Informal settlements, to give a well known example, are usually illegal.

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sidewalk=no - there is no actual sidewalk that pedestrians may use. It solves the main issue of routing (why we tag sidewalk=* at all) and It should also help with iD editor and others that hide less popular tags from mappers not to make catastrophic changes.

IMHO this is troll tagging, there is a sidewalk and this is what the tag is about: „ Indicates the presence or absence of a sidewalk (pavement/footway).“

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44

Theoretically, you could also do something like this:

highway=residential
sidewalk=both

And add nodes on both ends with

access=yes
barrier=parked_cars
foot=no

I would still prefer the sidewalk:both:obstacle=parked_cars, but depending on your legislation, this might be a compromise. Or maybe I’m having a brain fart :worried:

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and I agree with that quote completely. What I do not agree with is that something that is disused:sidewalk (or abandoned:sidewalk or razed:sidewalk) is actually the same thing as sidewalk=yes, which (if I understand you correctly) you seem to imply. See my explanation above.

sidewalk=yes would be the trolltag for that case, as no usable sidewalk exists there.

If I crushed a car under hydraulic press, would you still call that “a car” or “a lump of metal” ? If there is abandoned room in the ground floor of residential building where many years ago a shop was (but is no longer), would you still call (and map) that as a shop=* or disused:shop=* ? I wouldn’t call it a shop, because I can’t buy anything there, which is a whole reason for mapping shops.

In the same way, I wouldn’t call illegal parking on the stretch of asphalt over the kerb which is unusable for pedestrians “a sidewalk”, no matter what initial idea might have been, as it cannot be used as a sidewalk by pedestrians walking.

Also note that we don’t know for sure what it was really intended to be, we can only guess: it might actually have been intended as a parking, or as a cycleway, or as a sidewalk, or as something else. Sure, some have (much) higher probabilities then others, but there is no way to be sure, as there is no current sign specifying, and trying to guess what it probably should’ve been fails Verifyability principle. Only things I am certain are:

  • it is NOT a sidewalk nor cycleway (as it is never usable for such purposes)
  • it is NOT a legal parking (as in Croatia, parking must always be signed to be legal)

So the only surely correct tags are:

highway=residential
sidewalk=no
cycleway=no
parking=no

What I would like is to add detail to indicate that something exists on the side of the kerbs, in order to avoid confusion (of mappers with opinion similar to yours) and avoid tagging mistakes (especially of armchair mappers) and provide extra details which might be useful in the future (for example, if city council decides that they should make a sidewalk or a cycleway there to improve traffic sustainability - is there enough space, and what are the expenses - e.g. is it only a few signs and a row of bollards / barriers to stop cars parking there, or if whole street need widening / reworking, etc.)

I though adding those details via disused:sidewalk=both, note=* and perhaps disused:sidewalk:left:width=* / disused:sidewalk:right:width=* would be more useful than not providing them.

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Seriously? I’m not a native to that area, but if that isn’t a sidewalk, this country clearly builds them the same way as Germany. With kerbs. And lowered kerbs. And paving stones. We’re still talking about the first picture, right? Because that is a sidewalk, unless your city is building on-kerb parking spaces on raised kerbs :laughing:

I don’t think we come to an agreement here: You don’t want to call it a sidewalk, for us this clearly is one. No need to discuss this any further.

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47

Although I am impressed by the effort of @Matija_Nalis to find a suitable tagging for this situation, I have to agree to that. There are 2 sidewalks. The sidewalks are not “disused” but cannot be used as designed for by pedestrians due to objects placed all over the ways. If these objects are cars or pianos or fallen trees does not really matter, they are just any kind of object being obstacles to the pedestrians.

There is no fitting tag for this situation, whereas the problem seems to be existing in many places. See this recent topic about the same issue. So would it not be better to go the straight way and establish a new tag instead of trying to force existing tags into this gap - notwithstanding if actual routers may have a problem with it?

48

Um, my eyesight ain’t what it used to be, but where are you seeing paving stones on that first picture? I think that is an asphalt. And yes, over here, sometimes only difference between on-kerb parking, cycleway=track and sidewalk=left and might be coloring on the surface and/or a vertical sign.

So yes: in Croatia, that same illegal parking off the street on the first picture might tomorrow become legal car parking, or sidewalk, or cycleway – with only some paint involved, no other road works.

unless your city is building on-kerb parking spaces on raised kerbs :laughing:

They do. I’m glad someone is having fun at that, as I guess our car drivers probably aren’t :wink:

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and I agree with that quote completely. What I do not agree with is that something that is disused:sidewalk (or abandoned:sidewalk or razed:sidewalk) is actually the same thing as sidewalk=yes, which (if I understand you correctly) you seem to imply.

yes, this is legally a sidewalk, constructed as a sidewalk and working as a sidewalk, and the only problem is there are parked cars to be expected, so you won’t be able to walk there, that’s a fact which is useful to know for pedestrian routing, but it doesn’t change that there is a sidewalk. You called it a sidewalk yourself.

sidewalk=yes would be the trolltag for that case, as no usable sidewalk exists there.

no, because “currently usable” is not a criterion for the existence of the thing.

If I crushed a car under hydraulic press, would you still call that “a car” or “a lump of metal” ?

a better comparison would be a car without petrol. Is it still a car? IMHO yes, although it doesn’t currently drive.

If there is abandoned room in the ground floor of residential building where many years ago a shop was (but is no longer), would you still call (and map) that as a shop=* or disused:shop=* ? I wouldn’t call it a shop, because I can’t buy anything there, which is a whole reason for mapping shops.

yes, this gets to the core of the issue, a shop in OpenStreetMap is about an activity, a sidewalk is not, it is about physical infrastructure. The building in your shop example remains a building, even if the shop is vacant (and all other areas in the building as well, if you like)

In the same way, I wouldn’t call illegal parking on the stretch of asphalt over the kerb which is unusable for pedestrians “a sidewalk”, no matter what initial idea might have been, as it cannot be used as a sidewalk by pedestrians walking.

frankly, the municipality should either declare the sidewalk a parking or tow all those cars.

Also note that we don’t know for sure what it was really intended to be, we can only guess: it might actually have been intended as a parking, or as a cycleway, or as a sidewalk, or as something else. Sure, some have (much) higher probabilities then others, but there is no way to be sure, as there is no current sign specifying,

are there generally signs for sidewalks in your country? I didn’t see them, sidewalks are very frequently not sign posted but evident from the layout and materials used (e.g. the kerb)

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50

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you that it is the crux of the problem! :100:

I strongly disagree however that “shop is about activity and sidewalk is NOT”.

To me, both are very much primarily (if not exclusively) about activities.

  • If shop=* wasn’t about activity but physical space only, I’d mark it up as building:part=* and related tags instead.
  • If sidewalk=* wasn’t about activity but physical space only, I’d probably map it is an area=yes + surface=asphalt etc. instead (it would be better precision too!).

What I am wondering, Would you consider for example highway=primary be about activity (i.e. driving motor vehicles over it, mostly) or about “physical infrastructure” only? In other words, if one were to map as highway=primary some way where NO vehicles could drive at ANY time, would that be OK in your reasoning?
And if you consider it is not OK to trolltag ways intended for vehicle movement in such way, why would it be OK to trolltag ways intended for pedestrian movement?

(Also, do you really never use sidewalk=* tag for pedastrian-movement-related activities, but only for some other things? Could you share which ones? And what do you think vast majority of OSM users use sidewalk=* for? I’d wager they use it for its primary purpose/activity, same as a shop=*, or amenity=parking or amenity=fuel)

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