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Wouldn’t “shoulder” better than “lane” for an at grade pedestrian strip at the edge of the roadway. They could be used together “shoulder:both:lanes=2” in the case of separate bicycle and pedestrian lane on each side of the road surface.

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I’d suggest not - in British English (the dialect that OSM mostly uses) it’s not a shoulder because it’s not wide enough.

Call it verge if you want and add a surface tag, or make up your own term, but picking a word that means something else is likely to confuse.

Personally I’ve always tagged sidewalks separated from the road by paint but not a kerb as sidewalks.

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Which brings us back to the main question: is a sidewalk an infrastructure that’s separated from the carriageway, or is a sidewalk just “where pedestrians walk, wherever that is”.
My understanding has always been that in OSM, a sidewalk is a dedicated way for pedestrians and/or bicyclists, physically separated from the carriageway, running along of it. But since I’m not a native speaker, so that might be a misunderstanding. I always thought sidewalk = trottoir = Bürgersteig, just for background.

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That my understanding. It mainly the seperation by some type of barrier.

I wasn’t aware that a shoulder was less than a particular width. Is there a term for an at-grade pedestrian way.

I would suggest one but the US doesn’t have a concept of anything else but shoulders. Other than for emergency use, designated at-grade pedestrians ways don’t really exist. There usually a customary yellow line to marks the outer edge of motorized traffic but I don’t know how much it is enforced.

This because most municipalities either build sidewalks or let pedestrians to walk on the road surface of any residential or low speed street.

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I have always thought the tag included ways dedicated for pedestrians but separated from the road only by markings

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Probably, look at the picture I posted above, where the sidewalk changes from being separated by a kerb to being separated by a road marking, is it instead turning into a shoulder then?

The more I read about the subject, the more I like the tagging mentioned by @Minh_Nguyen - the pedestrian_lane - which is very much American :slight_smile: This even would lend itself for separate ways tagging, much the same as is done with sidewalks. I miss his vote in the proposal there.

I put the pedestrian_lane in the Wiki section, it got moved from top to bottom, while this is the most convenient way for mappers. The lanes: stuff will never work. I bet, there are lots of such lanes mapped either as sidewalk or as nondescript footway.

After all, the distinction, even if here not based in law, is based in construction standards, for good reasons: Ground markings are not seen in winter, e.g.

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Ummm, both of those resolve to the same meaning to me? “infrastructure that’s separated from the carriageway” does not specify how it must be separated (tree lines, jersey barriers, bollards, kerbs, different surface on the same level e.g. paving_stones vs. asphalt, or just painted lines) - just that there should be clear delineation between carriageway (i.e. lanes dedicated for regular motor vehicle traffic) and other surfaces (where regular motor vehicle traffic is not allowed).

Note that we already have the similar “what is required for delineation” with foot vs. bicycle combined ways - i.e. how we tag segregated=yes cycleway and footway – they might often be segregated/delineated by kerbs, or they might be on same level but just different surface, or there might be only painted line (and some pictograms) for delineation.

Depending on the country, some of those demarcations are more popular then others, of course.

I’ve tried to sort them by their current usage according to taginfo where possible, as that at least is (mostly) objective. Trying to sort them by what is preferred would necessarily bring subjective bias into play (and thus needlessly hurt feelings of everyone who does not share that same preference) so I tried to avoid that as much as possible. As taginfo usage changes with time, feel free to rearrange them.

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Just north of here there’s somewhere you can walk separated from the road by a painted line. I mapped it from survey (originally as “footway”, later changed to “sidewalk”) about 10 years ago. There’s no Mapillary coverage, but you can see it on GSV here.

I am a native British English speaker** and I’d suggest that the description of this would be a “pavement”, but because that means different things in different versions of English OSM tends to use “sidewalk” for that. It’s not really a shoulder - those are common on motorways and some expressways in England, but not on other roads. In Ireland, going back a few decades, shoulders were extremely common (less so now after more motorways have been built). There are still some examples; here is one that I found without much searching.

** but I am only one of many, and as the StreetComplete shoulder debacle showed there are different view here.

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Do you also favor mapping them as separate ways? I think that’s really the definition that matters most in an OSM context: a sidewalk is a footpath associated with the street that can be mapped as a separate way without violating the physical separation principle (even if that isn’t the locally preferred style).

I was unaware that kindergartners in Germany are taught random English words such as “sidewalk” and that your local laws are written in English. :wink: To reiterate, if this American English word has been co-opted by German mappers as a euphemism for a more specific German word, and that word’s meaning should be imposed upon the rest of the world, then the documentation should say so.

I’m definitely not insisting that the whole project follow American English, but I think it’s very important that native speakers of other languages be aware of what can be lost in translation. That “sidewalk” happens to be a common translation of Bürgersteig does not necessarily mean the two words have exactly the same meaning. Defining sidewalk as Bürgersteige either requires mappers and data consumers to pay special attention to documentation, or it requires us to accept a little inconsistency from one country to another.

For the record, the sidewalk feature page was started by an American; the sidewalk documentation was started by a Swedish mapper; and the successful proposal for footway=sidewalk ways was written by an Italian mapper based on an earlier proposal written by an American mapper. But generally speaking, you’re correct that we’ve historically benefited from the German community’s insightful proposals and documentation about navigation-related tags. The earliest proposal related to sidewalks was indeed written by a German speaker: it controversially proposed calling them “footways”.

Anyways, to me, the dialectal vocabulary and wiki history are secondary. The most important consideration is whether the tag’s definition is practically useful. If defining footway=sidewalk in terms of function causes this pedestrian lane to require a bunch of tags to undo the essence of what footway=sidewalk was approved for – physical separation – then this is classic troll-tagging. For the pedestrian lane, I favor footway=lane on the roadway (not a separate way), because it follows existing patterns and is unlikely to trip up any data consumer that has been interpreting OSM tags correctly.

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Well hello language barrier :laughing: Infrastructure was meant in a physical way, not in a usage way. I should probably rephrase it in OSM-terms:
A sidewalk, for me, is what makes a footway a track and not a lane. To explain this further, here’s the documentation from the wiki for cycle lanes:

Since we’ve been distinguishing this for bicycles for a long time, I was assuming the same applies to sidewalks.

In other words: If a footway alongside the road is an inherent part of the road, but set aside for the exclusive use of pedestrians, whilst being separated only by paint or other markings, and without a physical separation from vehicles, it’s not a sidewalk.

If we consider every part of a street where pedestrians can walk on, a sidewalk, then I think some things end up with weird definitions. And then “sidewalk” should be changes to “footway”, so that would be more clear (e.g. footway=right to indicate that pedestrians walk on the right side of the road). (No, I don’t want this, I’m just stating the consequences of calling a bit of paint on the road a “sidewalk” in countries where 99% of all sidewalks are separated by a kerb)

That’s exactly what I mean, thanks.

Agreed. A shoulder, for me, is a special lane for the road traffic, not separated by any physical barrier, so the traffic on the road can always pull over, but not drive on the shoulder. Usage varies by country, I suppose, but if the traffic going on the carriageway isn’t allowed to use a shoulder, it’s not a shoulder. It’s built for the traffic going on the road.

I can see how blurry this becomes when you’re trying to put this into a definition that people all over the world can relate to. Initially, in Germany, they were built as an emergency breakdown lane and also as a parking lane outside settlements. If you see a shoulder, you know it’s a shoulder. At least over here :person_shrugging:

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Usage varies by country, I suppose, but if the traffic going on the carriageway isn’t allowed to use a shoulder, it’s not a shoulder. It’s built for the traffic going on the road.

as you spoke about Germany, there the “traffic” may not use the shoulder from my understanding, as you are not allowed to drive outside the carriageway markings.

Regarding the exact meaning of a term in German, I believe these are all the same in Germany (not in Austria as we just learned from Hungerburg), predominant usage depends on the linguistic region: Gehweg, Gehsteig, Trottoir, Trottwar, Bürgersteig and Fußweg (this one is more generic and generally means a footway)

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You are not allowed to drive on it, but you can stop and park. I don’t know of any shoulder where the traffic from the carriageway is not allowed to “use” the shoulder, where usage varies. How I hate typing in a foreign language :laughing: So the shoulder is “built for” the traffic on the carriageway, but signs can open up shoulders for other forms of transport as well. As I said: hard to put in words :confused:

Gehweg and Fußweg are identical and the official terms for a way used by pedestrians, no matter what. Trottoir and Bürgersteig are informal words referring to to a specific form of the former, namely raised and separated by a kerb. The other terms were not used in any region I’ve lived in.

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Sometimes a road is originally built wider than necessary to accommodate projected future traffic. In the meantime, some jurisdictions would mark off the excess space as a shoulder on either side, while others would just make the adjacent travel lanes much wider. I’m familiar with these shoulders allowing informal street parking, being reserved for emergency use only (including broken-down cars, not necessarily emergency vehicles), or effectively functioning as an extra lane at certain times (“shoulder lane”), but there may be some specific locations where the shoulder officially can’t be used for anything (outside a sensitive military installation, perhaps?).

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Understood! I did add the recently mentioned contender footway=lane to the section; at the end. Please sort as appropriate: Quick overpass survey shows it mostly used as an attribute to a highway=footway, this to little surprise. There are indeed some matching the topic here, while some are not.

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Combined there are more footway:*=lane than footway=lane . The latter is a shorthand for discussion only.

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So, you suggest that we follow that parallel, and that sidewalk=yes should (if one cares about extra detail) be mapped as sidewalk=track or sidewalk=lane (the same as cycleway=yes is in more detail mapped as cycleway=track or cycleway=lane)? Or am I misunderstanding the meaning here (it seemed so far to me that you oppose that similarity between cycleway and sidewalk)?

would it be more clear? According to wikipedia (and industry standards in Great Britain that someone linked here earlier) “sidewalk” in North American English means exactly the same thing as “footway” is in other English dialects – " path along the side of a street, highway, terminals."

So, it seems common meaning of English word “footway” is different than what OSM means by highway=footway (which encompasses both Sidewalk and Footpath).

Also, according to its wiki “Key footway=* refines the tag highway=footway”

So even if were wanted, it could only be used for separately mapped highway=footway, not to pedestrian way mapped as an property of highway=residential. But as you note that you don’t actually want that; I agree. It is long standing tradition in OSM that separate lanes (i.e. parts of the carriageway with separate semantics but separated only by paint) are not to be mapped as separate OSM ways.

I completely agree with that!

I agree too it is very important. However most important consideration (to me) is whether wiki definition is consistent with how tag is being used in practice. If theory (wiki) and practice (OSM tags in DB) diverge; the options forward are:

  • document that the tag has multiple meanings. Easiest, but reduces the usefulness of the tag for all data consumers (but that is not because of documenting multiple meanings, but because of original wording led to such ambiguous use!)
  • invent new tags that are not ambiguous, and deprecate old tag for all new uses (preferably “enforcing” it via editors warning), and slowly replacing old tags until it is gone completely (improves the usefulness, but takes a long time and much effort)
  • clear up the confusion in wiki, and manually verify (by contacting original creators, or resurvey) ALL existing usages (obviously, only after wide community discussion – this is mostly doable only in cases where tag usage is quite small, so probably not an option here)

I’m afraid I lost you there. Can you give concrete full examples what you meant here? I.e. which set of tags would you find OK, and which set of tags would you find as trolltag (and why)?

Isn’t footway=* intended to be used exclusively as property of highway=footway? Both its wiki (which I linked above) as well as common OSM practices (e.g. if main tag is foo=bar, then bar=* property tag only refines that foo=bar, and is not to be used on foo=xyz). Or am I misunderstanding how you would use it?

So, IMO, adding footway=something on e.g. highway=residential would definitely be breaking existing patterns and not following them (it would also break explicit wording of Key:footway wiki). Such cure might be worse than a poison.
footway=* should only be used on highway=footway (but then, in the specific case of footway=lane, we get into much bigger trouble of mapping lanes as separate ways – which I think there is strong consensus we don’t do in OSM. And also would be impossible in case where pedestrian lane is in the middle of residential road)

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Thanks, added extra taginfo and sorted on:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Sidewalks#As_a_pedestrian_lane_on_the_road

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Whatever works best, to be honest. I’d do it as a separate way if it’s necessary to do so for topological purposes, but for a “normal roadside footpath” I’d do it as a tag on the road as it’s easier to do initially and easier to maintain. If someone’s already mapped something as a separate way I’d leave it like that, unless it was obviously wrong in some way.

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Earlier, it was proposed that we should map a pedestrian lane marked off by paint as sidewalk:right=lane based on a functional understanding of “sidewalk”. Because sidewalk=* and footway=sidewalk are often used in conjunction and seen as two representations of the same concept, it was suggested that the same infrastructure could be mapped as a separate highway=footway with footway=sidewalk. The separate way implies physical separation. But because footway=sidewalk was approved specifically for physically separate infrastructure and that’s how data consumers interpret it, there have been suggestions to erase that aspect of a sidewalk by:

Any data consumer that currently understands sidewalk=* or footway=sidewalk would need to carve out some new logic for dealing with this new tagging scheme. Note that none of this discussion pertains to whether pedestrian traffic is allowed on a street; that would be the responsibility of access tags.

On the other hand, if the suggestion is that sidewalk=lane is completely unrelated to mapping separate footway=sidewalk ways, then we would need to contend with edge cases such as a pedestrian lane beside a sidewalk, also called a sidewalk extension. Would sidewalk:right=* require two values, either lane;yes or lane;separate, depending on mapping style?

Contrast this with the alternative approach, that a pedestrian lane is not a sidewalk after all. According to this view, some wiki pages about sidewalks have inaccurate examples, but these pages have been pretty fluid anyways. Meanwhile, it’s consistent with the approval for footway=sidewalk.

I’m assuming that no mapper and no software treats a way as a footway just because it is tagged footway=*, ignoring the highway=* value, just as no one treats a way as a cycleway just because it is tagged cycleway=*. Otherwise, we’ve got a big problem with roadways tagged cycleway=lane and shared_lane. The footway=* documentation describes the key as iterative refinement because that’s how the footway=sidewalk and footway=crossing proposals used it, but neither proposal defined footway=* as exclusively for iterative refinement.

I recognize that I’m arguing for footway=* to be a homonymous key, but that’s already the case with cycleway=*, so if anything it would be surprising if footway=* did not have homonyms.

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If the vote for pedestrian_lane=* had been held at time of the vote for footway=sidewalk, it would have been approved. If the vote for footway=sidewalk had been held at time of vote for pedestrian_lane=* it would have been rejected.

Looking at usage, pedestrian lanes are conceived of as sidewalks (in the sense of the term that never went to vote) slightly more often than as footpaths.

I consider the damage from mapping them as sidewalks with no kurb (a monster of BE/AE) less than the damage than mapping them as footways (in the OSM meaning), that are lanes instead.

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