[Tagging] "Feature Proposal - RFC - Sidewalk

[SomeoneElse]

On 21/03/2011 16:29, David Paleino wrote:
> What I understood was that the first tagging example of my page was 
> that [1]
> was generally accepted.
>
> [1]:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Hanska/Sidewalk#Mapping_as_a_separate_way
>

The original page said something like:

if ( sidewalk is a structure separated from the main street )
{
tag using "method (a)"
}
else
{ // the sidewalk is just a painted lane on the street
tag using "method (b)"
}

You suggested that the "else" part of the above should be "deprecated".  
What I presume that you're suggesting is that we should always use 
"method (a)" regardless of whether sidewalk is a structure separated 
from the main street or not, rather than make the "if" rather than the 
"else" always true (that would mean changing a lot of roads in the real 
world!).

One problem is that there's quite a lot of data (the sidewalk is just a 
painted lane on the street) already mapped using method (b), so any 
router would need to be able to cope with that data, as well as any 
existing and future data mapped using method (a).

Another problem is that mapping using method (b) is at least twice as 
much work as method (a), which will lead to sidewalks getting mapped 
even less than they are now (which, to be frank, isn't much).

In summary, I don't think that it is a good idea to suggest that mappers 
always create separate ways for sidewalks (although in some cases it of 
course makes sense to do so).

Cheers,
Andy