[OSM-newbies] pedestrian or footway?

Paul Johnson baloo at ursamundi.org
Tue Nov 10 22:48:03 GMT 2009


Charlotte Wolter wrote:

>          I'm working on an area of LA, Venice, where we have a 
> phenomenon called locally "walk streets." These "streets" are, in 
> fact, wide sidewalks. Houses front onto these sidewalks. There is no 
> access for cars, and bike riding is not encouraged (but not 
> prohibited) because the "walk street" can have many pedestrians at 
> times. Residents who have cars, access the houses and parking via 
> alleys behind the houses.

highway=pedestrian
bicycle=destination

Though I question your city planner's desicion to allow alleyway access
to homes via car; to date no high density development that has attempted
this in the US has been successful, usually it dies a horrible death
when the alleyways get congested.  Exclusively car-free
communities have been far more successful in the US by comparison; I
think LA needs to address the underlying problem of moving more people
instead of moving more vehicles before they can even think about
high-density development.

>          I was busily converting these from "residential street" to 
> "pedestrian," when I came across work by someone else who was using 
> "footway." Which do you think is correct?  I don't care (though I 
> think the dotted red line for "footway" looks cooler on the rendered 
> map than the grey of "pedestrian"). I just want to get it right.

Don't tag for the renderer, you can always run your own renderer to get
the appearance you want for your map.





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