I mapped most the sidewalks in Ottawa with another person and we did it as part of the community, no strings attached.
On Fri., Apr. 3, 2020, 4:26 p.m. Martin Chalifoux via Talk-ca, < talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> wrote: > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-ca mailing list > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca >
_______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
