Requesting Feedback for Sidewalks in Swift Current SK

[ObsessiveCompulsiveCartographer (Jonathan)]

Hello! I started mapping some sidewalks in Swift Current SK after I noticed someone else do a couple of streets, but I was hoping to get some feedback before I or other mappers invest too much time and effort into this. It seems that we are going with separate sidewalks, which to my understanding is the preferred method in North America. Despite this, I have noticed that while Saskatoon is mapped this way, Regina has sidewalks mapped as tags on the roadways. Due to this it appears that there in no clear consensus in the province and I would love to hear the thoughts of mappers in the area.

I’m also not 100% sure I’ve done this right and I’d really appreciate if a more experienced mapper could take a look at what I’ve done so far in the Ashley Park neighborhood and let me know if there are any glaring oversights (I think this link should include the coordinates?):

OpenStreetMap

A few questions regarding what I’ve done so far:

• Have I mapped the curbs correctly, separating them from the main sidewalk? My understanding is that this can be helpful for routers to know when an obstacle is relevant (i.e. you don’t have to worry about the curb if you don’t step off the sidewalk). I’m not sure how relevant it is to map the curbs here as even when there is an inaccessible curb, there is usually a driveway nearby that provides a lowered curb (although these have yet to be mapped). Is this even worth mapping?

• How specific should I be when splitting roads to tag the presence of a separate sidewalk? In the attached example would it be too pedantic to split the road twice given that the sidewalk ends at different points on each side?

  

• Should the intersections between alleys and the sidewalks be marked as crossings too or is that just unnecessary clutter?

Thanks in advance for the help

[Mateusz_Konieczny]

@ObsessiveCompulsiveCartographer

• In the attached example would it be too pedantic to split the road twice given that the sidewalk ends at different points on each side?

Personally I (on other side of world) split twice, but I would not complain about someone putting sidewalk=separate on entire one including stub toward North

[hoserab]

@ObsessiveCompulsiveCartographer

• Have I mapped the curbs correctly, separating them from the main sidewalk? My understanding is that this can be helpful for routers to know when an obstacle is relevant (i.e. you don’t have to worry about the curb if you don’t step off the sidewalk). I’m not sure how relevant it is to map the curbs here as even when there is an inaccessible curb, there is usually a driveway nearby that provides a lowered curb (although these have yet to be mapped). Is this even worth mapping?

I think you’ve mapped them “correctly”; I would do them essentially the same way.

I do think it’s important and relevant to map curbs, regardless of the presence of curb cuts for a driveway. Anecdotally looking at the satellite imagery in the area you linked, I don’t see any driveways I would consider “nearby”. And regardless: indicating that there’s a raised curb at the corner where the crossing is is still important to other users, e.g. vision-impaired people who are otherwise perfectly capable of stepping onto or off of a curb as long as they know it’s there.

• How specific should I be when splitting roads to tag the presence of a separate sidewalk? In the attached example would it be too pedantic to split the road twice given that the sidewalk ends at different points on each side?

  

I wouldn’t bother splitting the road way here, and just tag it sidewalk:both=separate. It tells data users to look at the parallel sidewalks, and the accurate mapping of said sidewalks will indicate the geometry and limitations thereof.

• Should the intersections between alleys and the sidewalks be marked as crossings too or is that just unnecessary clutter?

The crossing:continuous key was introduced a couple years ago, but its use for driveways and alleys is somewhat controversial. Some people use it, some people don’t. Personally I don’t, and think it is “unnecessary clutter”. You can see more discussion about it here: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/rfc-feature-proposal-continuous-crossings/.