[Tagging] Disabled access on footpaths

Georg georg2016 at nurfuerspam.de
Sun Jun 13 10:23:29 UTC 2021


On 2021-06-10 15:21, Paul Allen wrote:

> 1) How do we tag that a footpath/bridleway is legally (and practically) accessible to
> wheelchairs and, possibly, mobility scooters?  I think they need to be covered
> independently as legislation doesn't draw a distinction but the situation on the
> ground might permit wheelchairs but not mobility scooters.

Physical access for sport wheelchairs, "standard" wheelchairs and
mobility scooters can't be put in a clear order as all three types could
be superior compared to the other. For example, the off-road mobility
scooter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELzh7qtr2pg will allow more
difficult terrain than most wheelchairs, even sport wheelchairs, think
alone of chassis clearance. But sport wheelchairs allow skilled people
like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l_1hxp7IuM to access places we'd
usually not consider wheelchair accessible. While sport wheelchairs with
skilled users and off-road scooters will easily access areas we OSM
mappers must tag with wheelchair=no because of one single step being
 >7cm high (see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:wheelchair),
both are usually wider than standard wheelchairs and thus won't have
access to narrow areas. For that reason, e.g. Andreas Pröve tuned his
sports wheelchair such that he can quickly take off the big wheels
(considerably reducing the width) and roll on tiny roller skates wheels.

Hence, I strongly favor to describe the actual trail's properties
(surface, smoothness, width, maxweight,...) so everyone can get an idea
whether any given combination of user and device (wheelchairs + scooters
but also eMTB, quad, baby stroller etc) could master it,  combined with
the IMHO much more useful suggestion (see below) of difficulty scale for
wheelchair as we know from hiking, climbing etc.


On 2021-06-12 13:09, Greg Troxel wrote:


> So I conclude that at top level we have to represent three things
> (specific tags are to explain, not really proposals):
>
>   wheelchair=yes -- a wheelchair can physically travel
>
>   wheelchair:access=no -- wheelchairs are prohibited (but pedestrians
>   are allowed).  I don't think we need this, until there's a non-trivial
>   exmmple.
>
>   mobility_scooter:physical=yes -- a mobility_scooter can physically travel
 >
>   mobility_scooter:access=no -- mobility scooters are prohibited, even
>   though foot traffic and wheelchairs are allowed

While I fully agree on legal access, I completely disagree on
mobility_scooter:physical=yes
1) because of the reasons stated above (wheelchairs and mobility
scooters can't be put in a clear order concerning accessibility)
2) wheelchair, mobility scooter and quad are no clearly distinguished
concepts but overlapping, see e.g.
http://www.proeve.com/portfolio/myanmar/ (IMHO something in between
wheelchair and scooter; BTW, Andreas Pröve is a great speaker with a lot
of humor & vividness so I can highly recommend attending a live show) or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELzh7qtr2pg (IMHO something in between
scooter and quad).


> there are things that are walking paths, trails, that become more difficult.
> So I think we need something like sac_scale, to indicate
>
>    ADA compliance (or the equivalent?), which is about max slope, curbs,
>    resting areas, and a bunch of other technical design requirements
>
>    suitable for someone in a heavy regular wheelchair who can't deal with
>    too much
>
>    suitable for someone with more arm strength who is willing to put up
>    with bumps
>
>    suitable for sport wheelchair use

+1 for such a scale

For the last one, I doubt restricting to only sport wheelchair proves
useful in the long run. Especially having AI and autonomous vehicles in
mind, I'd prefer something like "A location requiring a more capable
combination of device and user. Ideally add a short description."


> I would think there are disability organizations that have some
> definitions used in guides, and we really should figure that out and
> adopt their labels rather than making our own (hence the sac_scale
> reference).

If there is, we shall certainly use it as inspiration or - in case these
guides are compatible with each other and also with OSM tagging - we can
simply adopt.

Cheers, Georg



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