I agree with you in principle. And I know for a fact that statistics and studies done in universities are very useful to justify new infrastructures. But concretely I don’t see the parallel. Great things were done for the cycling infrastructure and it came a long way. The OSM map is not a mess because of it. The ways were not all duplicated three times to show a bike can ride on a street. I and others are just questioning if what is being done now is the way to go. Now is the time to do that before it perhaps becomes too late because there is no undo or redo button.
> On Apr 3, 2020, at 16:50, Pierre-Léo Bourbonnais <l...@leograph.com> wrote: > > Be very careful here, as universities and non-profit organizations did > support and encourage better cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. There are > a great amount of traffic calming and cycling path construction that were > justified by research projects. Without precise data in OpenStreetMap, it is > very difficult to justify such projects with the governments. Also, people > that needs universal accessibility greatly benefit from precise pedestrian > data (wheelchairs, deaf or blinded people). > > Universities and researchers are your allies here. > > Because of hard work by a lot of researchers in the transportation domain, we > can save lives (vision Zero for instance) and increase overall security in > urban and rural environement. That is not superfluous at all. > > The more data we have when presenting to elected officials and governemnt > agencies, the more we can justify cycling paths and sidewalk construction. > Without good complete and precise data, they will not even listen to us. > > > >> On Apr 3, 2020, at 16:39, Pierre Boucher <pbouc...@lavoile.com >> <mailto:pbouc...@lavoile.com>> wrote: >> >> 👍Martin >> >> Envoyé par BlueMail <http://www.bluemail.me/r?b=15824> >> Le 3 avr. 2020, à 16:26, Martin Chalifoux via Talk-ca >> <talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>> a écrit: >> 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 >>> <mailto: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 <mailto:Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> >>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca >>> <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca> >> >> >> Talk-ca mailing list >> Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca >> <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca> >> _______________________________________________ >> Talk-ca mailing list >> Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca >
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