Questions about micromapping sidewalks

I’m adding sidewalks (UK: pavements) to my local stomping ground, and have a few questions before I get too far.
*Should sidewalks be given the name of the parallel street?
*Should the roads be tagged foot=no after sidewalks are added, or will routing programs automatically choose the sidewalk?
*Where you can cross a road at a traffic signal, should the crossing node of highway and footway be tagged highway=traffic_signal?
*Should a crossing with curb cuts but no painted crossing be treated differently from a zebra crossing?
*What if there are no curb cuts to cross at an intersection, but crossing is legal? Should a walkway be drawn across the road there?
*Is there any chance of a larger zoom level being added to Mapnik? :slight_smile:

Have you run out of stuff to map then? :wink:

I presume you’ve seen OSM for the blind on the Wiki? You normally have the wiki references to hand! :slight_smile:

It’s quite useful to think “if I were blind and using a satnav to tell me where to go, what would it say here and what data would I need to collect to enable it?” (I do this when mapping roads, but the principle’s the same)

I also thought there were some proposals to tag the road with sidewalk=left/right/both (it might have used the general term “footway=”) rather than map them separately. Did this ever get anywhere?

*Should sidewalks be given the name of the parallel street?
Using my question above, I would want the satnav to say “turn left on to main street” which suggests that the sidewalks should have a name.

*Should the roads be tagged foot=no after sidewalks are added, or will routing programs automatically choose the sidewalk?
Foot=no implies (to me anyway) that pedestrians are forbidden (like on a motorway) or otherwise impassable on foot. Not sure if jaywalking counts!

Where I live there are some pedestrianised roads that are traffic free for parts of the day, but the pavements and road are all on the same level. During the day when traffic is forbidden the the crowds wander all over the road, and when it’s quiet when traffic is allowed they do the same and simply move to one side if a car comes along. I would definitely tag this as foot=yes, so perhaps a normal road should be tagged foot=no to differentiate it? Not sure.

*Where you can cross a road at a traffic signal, should the crossing node of highway and footway be tagged highway=traffic_signal?
Not sure what you mean? Would the footpath split to joint the crossing (i.e. a route from one side to the other) or just continue with the node in between?

*Should a crossing with curb cuts but no painted crossing be treated differently from a zebra crossing?
I would say so if the general requirements of OSM for the blind are anything to go by. In the UK these quite often have studded paving stones on the pavements.

*What if there are no curb cuts to cross at an intersection, but crossing is legal? Should a walkway be drawn across the road there?
In my view, yes.

*Is there any chance of a larger zoom level being added to Mapnik?
Pass

Nah, just picking the low-hanging fruit before I spend a day or two walking around downtown and filling the gaps.

I think this was always for cases where sidewalks are not separately mapped, since it can be a rather pointless chore to map all the sidewalks of a suburban or rural area.

Does no-one else have a view on this?

@NE2 Your local stomping ground is looking good, btw

Some thoughts:
If the sidewalk/pavement/footway is right next to the road (ie nothing in between except a curb/kerb), then I would just add the footway=both/left/right tag to the road: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Footway
I wouldn’t bother mapping footways unless they are more separated, ie with grass between it and the road. But you can map them if you want…

Anyway:
IMO, they should not have the same name as the street, as that is the street name, not the sidewalk name.
The road should not be tagged as foot=no unless it is actually forbidden/illegal to walk on it. This is not the case in the UK (except for motorways etc), though it may be different in other parts of the world. ‘Clever’ routing software should prefer the footways for pedestrians anyway (though they might use the road if its shorter, and you request the absolute shortest route). You could look at Cyclestreets for routing, which will prefer cycleways where available, plus has options for the quietest route vs fastest route etc.

For crossings, see this page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:crossing
If there’s traffic lights with a crossing, then tag the node where the roads and footway intersect as highway=traffic_signal plus crossing=traffic_signals. Or maybe highway=crossing plus crossing=traffic_signals, it should be much the same anyway.
A zebra crossing would be highway=crossing, crossing=uncontrolled . Whereas an unmarked crossing (with just dropped kerbs) would be highway=crossing, crossing=unmarked.

Note that page also lists sloped_curb=no/one/both

Specifically with the zebra crossing question, I’m talking about crossings at traffic signals, where you have a walk signal and traffic must give way to you. Often there is no painted crossing, just a stop line and curb cuts to show you where to cross.

No it’s not; it’s missing most of the buildings :slight_smile:

Have a look at central Helsinki, Finland where sidewalks are mapped as separate ways. It works quite alright with Cloudmade’s routing engine at least - you get detailed information where to cross etc.

It seems to be treating sidewalks as unnamed ways (which they are) and routing along roads for very slight saving of distance: http://maps.cloudmade.com/?lat=60.164785&lng=24.943514&zoom=18&directions=60.16734721573472,24.93149757385254,60.16408065202007,24.946517944335938&travel=foot&styleId=1&opened_tab=1