[Accessibility] Best way to map sidewalks ?

[Anat Caspi]


Hi!

Its Anat here from OpenSidewalks (through the TaskarCenter).

It’s not actually the case that we haven’t updated the proposal. We made some mods just recently, in fact. The reason we haven’t put it up for voting is because we believe it’s too big for the community to swallow whole- for a vote- but putting through the comprehensive picture in one place was important. 
Proposals should be small and concern with one tag at a time, which is how were approaching this. 
Its also not the case that were not consuming OSM data in accessmap- we are, but we add attributes to it in the backend, like elevation models. So once we pre-can the data, we use it on AccessMap. This does result in some discrepancies between what’s on OSM today, and what you may see on AccessMap. 

I should note that Clifford is being modest: after learning about opensidewalks, Clifford went ahead and mapped ALL of Mt. Vernon and made it possible to put up a personalized accessible pedestrian router for Mt. Vernon as well. 
You can find this here: Mt. Vernon on accessmap.io.
The mt. Vernon data is entirely OSM-derived. 

We are in the process of putting up a new version of HOT Tasking Manager to help cities and regions coordinate the mapping of sidewalks. Where are you mapping? Can we help you with some tools?

We’re a tiny operation (2.5 ppl now) but just got a little USDOT funding to expand this project (literally, just got this 1/15/21) so we hope you’ll see a lot more activity from us in the near future!!

I'm calling out to the rest of you, as well-- Padova, etc, If you believe your region or city is complete, we would love to help you spin up AccessMap for your locale.

contact us at this address.

Thanks!
Anat @ OpenSidewalks


On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 4:57 PM Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 10:49 AM pierrick pratter via Accessibility <accessibility at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I'm confuse on the way to add sidewalk data in OSM, it seems that there is two distinct way of mapping them as they are complementary and one should not be wildly used over the other.
>> 
>> For me the logical and easier way (and maybe easier for routing systems too) is to add the sidewalk tag on the road and if the sidewalk differ or is blocked by a obstacle that is not meant to be cross, I draw the sidewalk and tag it with footway=sidewalk but it is rare as almost all sidewalk in my country (FR) are part of the road.
>> 
>> So I wanted to have feedback from day to day users of tools that use each kind of mapping and also from developer of those tools, to know in the end which way is the best.
> 
> I started using the sidewalk as an attribute of the road method of adding sidewalks. When I learned from UW's Taskar Center for Accessible Technology that routing on sidewalks was difficult when the sidewalk was an attribute of the road, I switched to mapping sidewalks as separate objects. Now routers, those specifically built for sidewalks, can successfully find a suitable route for pedestrians. This is particularly helpful for those with limited mobility such as those in a wheelchair. You can learn more at opensidewalks.com, a website the university built to explain their strategy including recommendations for editing in OpenStreetMap. They have a demo router running at AccessMap.io for Seattle, WA. Seattle is a very hilly city that can be difficult to walk up hills even for the average person. 
> 
> Best,
> Clifford
>  
> -- 
> @osm_washington
> www.snowandsnow.us
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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