[Tagging] Using highway=footway as an area

[SomeoneElse]

On 09/08/2014 17:06, Dave F. wrote:
> Hi
>
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/51.49428/-0.12149
>
> I've noticed highway=footway is being used as an area across Lambeth 
> Bridge: North side as a closed polygon; South side within a relation. 
> (checking the history previously they were both highway=pedestrian.

Regardless of whether it's mapped as a footway or as a pedestrian area 
it looks like a fairly extreme case of "mapping for the renderer with no 
thought given to map usability".  If you look in the area of this node:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2622468074

The data as it exists now suggests that there's no access west from this 
"footway island" to the pedestrian crossing across Millbank, or actually 
anywhere on the west bank of the Thames.  This pedestrian island 
functionally duplicates the "real footway" 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/256600109 (from which you can get north 
and south, though not west)

I'd be in favour of a similar linear / area split as there is with 
rivers = "waterway=river" - is the line of the river for e.g. routing 
purposes; "waterway=riverbank"the outline of the bank which can be used 
for rendering but ignored for routing.

Cheers,
Andy