Nate, when reading this and other comments I try to figure who puts those sidewalks in and to the benefit of what users. From what I can see it is being done by university groups essentially, not the community. The beneficiaries are organizations that funds those groups with strings attached, essentially buying a service. The OSM mass of end-users is not it appears the beneficiary but rather a very small group of people. I thus ask very honestly are the universities hijacking OSM to execute their research projects just because it is there, free and easily usable ? Are OSM users ever a concern ? With regards to this specific sidewalk mapping effort I really have a hard time figuring how a mainstream OSM user, through the site or a mobile app, benefits in any way from this added layer or complexity. I tend to think to the contrary is makes the map overly complex, add information nobody will ever care about, render the experience cumbersome, that with no tangible gain. If that was the case I don’t think that would be right.
I don’t mean this to be inflammatory but just an honest questioning. > On Apr 3, 2020, at 15:14, Nate Wessel <bike...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I used to be opposed to sidewalk mapping, and I still think it is often done > poorly. I've changed my mind in the last year or two though. When I first > moved into my current neighborhood and started mapping the area, I hated at > all the poorly drawn sidewalks. They weren't well aligned, they didn't do > anything to indicate crossings, and they were far from complete. For a while > I was temped to delete the lot of them, but instead worked to gradually fix > them up, noted marked or signalized crossings, added in traffic islands, > pedestrian barriers etc. > > Once you have a high-quality, relatively complete mapping of sidewalks, I > really think they add a lot of value. You can see where sidewalks end, where > crossings are absent, how long crossings are, whether there is separation > from other traffic by e.g. fence or bollards. > > It's not just about routing. Sidewalks (and crossings) are infrastructure in > their own right and deserve to be mapped as such, at least in many dense > urban areas, and especially where they vary significantly from street to > street. I'm not saying it should be done everywhere, but it definitely does > have value in some places. > > Best, > > Nate Wessel, PhD > Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd > NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com/> > On 2020-04-03 2:49 p.m., Frederik Ramm wrote: >> Hi, >> >> On 4/3/20 19:45, Martin Chalifoux via Talk-ca wrote: >>> This morning I checked some large cities namely New-York, Paris, Amsterdam, >>> London, Berlin. Since OSM is best developed in Europe these capitals make >>> sense. I just checked Tokyo, Shangai, Seoul, Sydney to sample Asia. None of >>> them have this sidewalk mapping as separate ways. >> There are pockets here and there in Europe as well. Mostly what happens >> is this: >> >> 1. Someone wants to make a cool pedestrian/wheelchair/schoolkid routing >> project >> >> 2. The person or team has limited programming capability or budget, and >> hence must attack the problem with a standard routing engine >> >> 3. Standard routing engines do not have the capability to infer a >> sidewalk network from appropriately tagged streets (i.e. even if the >> street has a tag that indicates there's sidewalks left and right, the >> routing engine will not generate individual edges and hence cannot do >> something like "follow left side of X road here, then cross there, then >> follow right side" or so >> >> 4. Hence, tons of sidewalks (and often also pseudo-ways across plazas) >> are entered into OSM, to "make the routing work". >> >> (5. often people will then find that the routing engine generates >> instructions like "follow unnamed footway for 1 mile" which leads them >> to copy the road's name onto the sidewalk geometry... to "make the >> routing work"). >> >> (6. In some countries a pedestrian is allowed to cross a street >> anywhere. Happily I haven't yet encountered people cris-crossing the >> streets with footway connections to "make the routing work" in these >> countries. If you're in a country where you are only allowed to cross at >> marked crossings then that is easier.) >> >> All this is a sad state of affairs; if we had routing engines that could >> work well with simple "sidewalk" tags (and also make standard >> assumptions about which road types in which countries would usually have >> sidewalks even if not explicitly tagged), then we could save ourselves a >> *lot* of separately mapped sidewalks that really do not add valuable >> information, and just serve as crutches for routing engines. >> >> Personally I am very much opposed to the separate mapping of sidewalks, >> though I recognize that unless we have routing engines that work without >> these crutches, I will have a hard time convincing people to stop doing >> that. >> >> Bye >> Frederik >> > _______________________________________________ > Talk-ca mailing list > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
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