[Tagging] Sidewalks vs Footways

[Simone Saviolo]

2011/3/17 Peter Wendorff <wendorff at uni-paderborn.de>

> Hi.
> I'm from Germany, and therefore not argumenting with the English language,
> but "footway" is a more general term as distinct ways for people moving by
> foot are "footways", too.
> Ways along or part of a street with main purpose of often motorized
> vehicles - a indication for that is, that cars are located in the middle and
> therefore with less crossings than pedestrians - should be distinguished
> from standalone footways. Therefore I would prefer "sidewalk" or "pavement".
> Of these, sidewalk for me is more self explaining than pavement.
> I'm good enough speaking English to know even the word pavement - but that
> the way, where you walk along a street on one side is called sidewalk is
> better to understand even if the vocabulary is not known in particular.
>
> Thus I would prefer (and I even used it in the past) sidewalk as a tag for
> - well - sidewalks.
>

I agree with Peter. In Italy we use "highway=footway" for ways that have
been designed for pedestrians, as opposed to "regular" streets that are
closed to motorized traffic that we tag with "highway=pedestrian". While it
may be the case that some sidewalks have been tagged as footways, I think
the two concepts should be kept separate. It seems to me that there are
substantial differences between a sidewalk and a paved path through a park,
for example.


> regards
> Peter
>

Regards,

Simone
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