While it is correct that it allows for higher level of details, I’d point out that this in itself does not imply that “it is always the best”. Separate mapping has disadvantages too; e.g. to name a few (without intent to spark discussion about which is better, but just to show that other side exists too):
it increases database size (e.g. “sure, million of natural=tree nodes each with its own species=*, height=* and diameter=* is way more precise then one (or a few) areas with just landuse=forest and leaf_type=*”, but except for some outliers, majority of users would probably agree that it is bad idea to that precise in that case). While in the past it was often suggested to disregard this aspect as more detail is often deemed more important, it does cause problems (slower operations, requiring better mobile devices and better servers, discouraging local custom instances due to time and resource requirements to replicate DB etc). Separate sidewalks (and by extension, separate cycleways too) ways are only somewhat less extreme.
it often (i.e. almost always if we disregard imports) increases initial effort. e.g. I can mark sidewalk situation on the ground using StreetComplete in literally three clicks per street without even slowing down my stride, while mapping them as separate ways in iD, JOSM or Vespucci is significantly more work.
it increases maintenance effort. E.g. if better / more precise imagery becomes available, it is not enough correct one way, but 3 (or 5, if sidewalk+cycleway) need to be corrected. And unless uses some helper functionality, it is very likely the result might be ugly (e.g. roads and their sidewalks not being parallel) and thus less visually pleasing and harder to interpret and use.
it is harder to associate related elements and to keep them in sync, and it is less neat. More precisely, if sidewalk is considered integral part of the road infrastructure connected to some road, one may need to detect what road it is associated with (e.g. sidewalk:left=separate, footway=sidewalk, is_sidepath=*, relations etc.) It also breaks 3NF (IIRC database purists out there).
I don’t follow. For space- or bandwidth-limited environments, the download should already be filtering out data that’s unlikely to be used on the local device. In general, it shouldn’t be more complex to filter out footway=sidewalk in the same step that filters out, say, power=minor_line for use cases that don’t require it.
What is more difficult to filter out is sidewalk tags on the roadway that result in splitting the roadway many more times, but at least the space- and bandwidth-limited mobile software I’ve worked on has always been so abstracted away from OSM’s data model, for performance reasons, that the sidewalk tags and extra splitting have never posed a significant problem.
I don’t think anyone is saying that a sidewalk has to be mapped as a way initially, just as no one is contending that a river can’t be mapped only as a waterway=river to start out with. The question is whether it’s OK for someone else to come back in and increase the level of detail. There are local considerations about how roads are built in one locality or another, but I don’t think preserving someone’s first-pass StreetComplete edits for as long as possible should be one of them.
We can split to new topic if you’re quite interested (but as I said, I just wanted to give few counterexamples, not to get deep into discussion), but the gist is it is for example non trivial (to avoid saying impossible) to follow minutely diffs if you somehow try to automagically conflate highway=footway+sidewalk=footway to nearby highway=residential to add sidewalk* tags to it (sure, you can have two databases and conflate data from one to another using some algorithms, but that is neither resource-free, nor fool-proof, nor trivial to do).
Oh, I did not mean that someone should not modify StreetComplete sidewalk:*=* tags to fully expanded highway=footway way if they see the value in doing it, and local community consensus is that it is acceptable. In fact, I do it relatively often myself when I see the need (e.g. more detailed micromapping of road/sidewalk deviations, separate smoothness, separate hazards/obstacles/barriers, etc) in my community (where both ways of mapping are acceptable).
The post I replied to mentioned the tools that (as I understood it) would semi-automatically convert highway=residential+sidewalk=both to create 3 separate ways just for the sake of it, which I do not find as ideal solution, which is why I mentioned several cons lest people finding this thread later get the idea it has only pros since nobody replied, incorrectly guessing that thus there were consensus about it, and decide to do automated word-wide bot edit or something (yeah, it might sound somewhat far fetched, but I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe).
Not to bash the tool or its author! – if you were already intending to convert some area to separate ways for some good reason, and the tool reduces the amount of manual work – more power to you! The point being - having a good reason. If you do not have good reason (i.e. no data would be enriched, just bloated), or if the local consensus is against doing it, then I would usually prefer more simple sidewalk:*=* tags.
The same discussion can be helt about cycleways which goes alongside roads for motor vehicles.
For example I mapped a separate cycleway from a high detailed image. Others said this was wrong, because there was no physical separation between cycleway and car road (separation was a solid line), demanded the cycleway should be removed and tagged on the car highway instead. Even if the wiki says this the correct way of mapping such cycleways, and personally don’t think is a better solution, compared with separate ways.
Your example isn’t necessarily analogous to the sidewalks being discussed here. Personally, I’m quite fond of mapping sidewalk ways because, in my experience in the U.S., sidewalks are almost always physically separated by a curb, if not also a grassy verge, a small drainage ditch, or some trees which I’d like to map. But very occasionally, the sidewalk rejoins the roadway to be separated only by a painted line. Urban planners call this a pedestrian lane, while laypeople might still call it a “sidewalk”. In these cases, I do model it as a sidewalk tag on the roadway, based on the physical separation principle. This nuance applies to cycleways as well, although mappers sometimes disagree about what to do when there’s a very wide painted buffer or flexible bollards spaced too far apart.
It’s also very common in Ireland to walk across the road when the red pedestrian crossing is shown.
I was more thinking about crossing a road at a point that is not a designated crossing point, but what you describe is also common in many places (although typically not allowed).
I think simple sidewalks that are immediately adjacent to the roadway should be kept as attributes. If there is a separation like a verge inbetween then it isn’t a sidwalk, it’s a footpath and should be mapped separately.
If you were in a car and needed to get out you should be able to immediately step onto the sidewalk.
If there is a barrier in the way such as a fence or a hill, then it definitely shouldn’t be mapped as a sidewalk.
When there is a gap and the footpath is mapped, the road should be given sidewalk=no
sidewalk=separate should be reserved for when the separate way represents an actual sidewalk with no gap. I think this should be generally avoided because it creates too many ways too close together for no real reason.
By that logic, all the sections of sidewalk with a railing or narrow verge between the carriageway and the sidewalk would somehow cease to be sidewalks. Would they also cease to be sidewalks where there is a legal prohibition of stopping next to the sidewalk?
Defining a sidewalk only by its utility to a motorist isn’t why people map separate sidewalks. Pedestrian navigation and accessibility considerations are far more important to me.
I didn’t suggest that it’s only for motorists, but it’s one of the main differences. It’s equally important for cyclists and people getting off busses. But if there is anything in the way then it’s not a sidewalk but a footpath.
If it’s mapped as a sidewalk then it should be immediately available along the entire length of the way. Anything else is a footpath
Even if there were a legal prohibition on stopping for cars, it would still be usable in an emergency.
Agreed, “sidewalk” is not defined by (existence or lack of) barriers between carriageway and footway parts (not even by low barriers such as kerbs). I’ve recently consulted some dozen popular English dictionaries for definitions of “sidewalk”, so one may want to look into middle of that (longish) post for dictionary references: Pedestrian lane on the road - #88 by Matija_Nalis
In Croatia it is only illegal to cross the road if there is marked sidewalk inside 50 meters radius of your location, otherwise it is allowed to cross any road (except motorways and roads exclusively for traffic of motor vehicles) wherever you want (after you’ve made sure you can do it safely).
And even in inside-50m-radius case when it is forbidden to cross the road on unmarked place, it would extremely rarely be enforced (but would be heavily taken into account if such pedestrian is involved in traffic accident while breaking that rule - i.e. pedestrian hit by a car in such case will not be a victim, but the guilty party).
It’s a fraught issue. In the residential Where I live, there is sharp relief, therefore, frequently, not one but two footpaths exist in parallel to the road. Often many metres away.
I am happy to put in the work to describe them along with their associated steps. This obviously is of benefit to those with a mobility impairment.
Major roads can have sidewalks or pavements as we call them in the UK can have embedded pedestrian walkways, whereas residential routes sometimes need a more detailed description.
i.e. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/50.83938/-0.09920
It should be noted that all signatories of the Vienna Convention on Road traffic will have national legislation that allows pedestrians to cross the road in any place as long as there isn’t a crossing nearby (Art. 20 5.).
The latest update to our traffic code (in Austria, capitol being Vienna) specifically aims at fostering pedestrian and cyclist rights. The duty to use a marked crossing if within 25 m of walk got dropped, in case traffic allows for safe crossing (just like everywhere else).
I guess there is now only one way left to jaywalk - to cross at a signalized crossing between the stop markings for cars when the light shows red for pedestrians
Such decisions are usually not done lightly but based on statistics grounded in empiric evidence. I do not expect a rise in casualties.
Earlier this year, the infamously car-friendly state of California relaxed its crossing-related laws so that a police officer can only stop a pedestrian for jaywalking if they walked carelessly into oncoming traffic. The motivation was that racial minorities were getting fined or arrested for jaywalking much more frequently than white people, reflecting an apparent bias. However, jaywalking remains prohibited per se; an officer could still enforce it in relation to some other offense. If you jaywalk and get into a collision, you could be found at fault.
Even if jaywalking were perfectly legal, it remains the responsibility of an OSM-based router to recommend the best route according to the requested criteria. It should be the router’s responsibility, not the mapper’s, to optimize the route by taking shortcuts based on the user’s comfort level. This goes for pedestrian and wheelchair routing as much as for bicycle and motorcycle routing. If a router is unable to satisfy actual user expectations because of the tagging scheme, the problem might turn out to be orthogonal to whether we map sidewalks as separate ways, and the solution might turn out to be more tractable than this debate.
More broadly, it may be tempting to map a workaround for suboptimal infrastructure on behalf of users, but this can paper over the problem, making it more difficult for community members to argue for better infrastructure, perhaps relying on an OSM-based analysis.
That is a fine article there at laist . com, I can only subscribe to this, that it is up to the administration to better pedestrian infrastructure where it is lacking.
In my post, I was just commenting the legality of crossing, I did not read any of what is in this topic. Curiously though, You mention this, In my view, from my trench so to say, separate mapping of sidewalks does just the opposite of what you claim, namely make it
These separate sidewalks are just like rails laid by the mapper, aren’t they?
(yeah, it might sound somewhat far fetched, but I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe).
(technically illegal within a defined distance of a pedestrian crossing at least)
