[Tagging] When does highway=footway become highway=pedestrian?

[Clifford Snow]

Nathan,

On Tue, Oct 26, 2021 at 7:03 AM nathan case <nathancase at outlook.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>
>
> I’ve just posted this on the Wiki discussion page (
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:highway%3Dpedestrian#.22For_town_centres_and_civic_areas.22)
> but the thread is a little old and I know not everyone reads the Wiki
> anyway…
>
>
>
> I’m wondering at what point, if at all, a highway=footway becomes
> highway=pedestrian (i.e., a pedestrian area)?
>
>
>
> I have an example (
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/365487665#map=18/52.44601/-1.81904) of
> a sidewalk that has been mapped as a pedestrian area. It is certainly quite
> wide (around 7-8 m in places) and is located within a town centre/civic
> area. It even has painted markings (since COVID-19 pandemic began)
> splitting the direction of travel for pedestrians - though this is, of
> course, entirely ignored by everyone walking there.
>
>
>
> However, it is, fundamentally, just a wide paved area for pedestrians that
> runs parallel and adjacent to the main carriageway (road) – i.e. a sidewalk.
>
>
>
> Do we define particularly wide sidewalks as pedestrian areas? They do seem
> to match most of the criteria listed on the Wiki but it doesn’t seem to
> quite fit for me.
>

I certainly don't see anything wrong with this pedestrian way since there
is also a routable highway=path in the middle. (highway=footway +
footway=sidewalk would be better) It does show that there is a wide
pedestrian way which is accurate. Without the routable path, then just a
highway=pedestrian will block people from using it. (I've heard of one
proprietary router that does route on areas but I'm not aware of any open
source router that does.)

Best,
Clifford

-- 
@osm_washington
www.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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