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

[nathan case]

> Firstly,  when should highway=footway become a pedestrian area? Ultimately a subjective decision, but I personally consider whether the way has widened to beyond 5 meters and whether movement of pedestrians is not expected to be simply linear. Some pedestrian ways wider than 5m exist because a common 2m wide footway/sidewalk would not be wide enough to contain a large number of pedestrians and I would not map these as a Pedestrian Area. In the given example the location has clearly been widened to create an area, and I think it is acceptable to map this as an area with a way mapped through it.

Thanks for this. It’s good to hear everyone’s thoughts on this. My counter, at least for this specific example, is the priority given at the pedestrian/road intersections.

In the pedestrian area documentation, the emphasis is on any roads passing _through_ the area, i.e. a road is the more minor highway access wise. In the example I’ve linked, despite the pedestrian area being mapped alongside the whole stretch of road, it’s clear the sidewalks end and the intersecting roads take priority.  This can be seen by the markings and dropped kerbs etc.

So, it seems (at least to me) we should split the large pedestrian area into smaller areas. But if we do that, is this really a pedestrian area at all?

I’m certainly leaning more towards area:highway=footway or area:highway=cycleway as being the better scheme (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:area:highway%3Dpedestrian)

(I agree with your other points btw – a dedicated cycle lane/infrastructure would have been much more sensible)

From: Jass Kurn <jasskurn at gmail.com>
Sent: 29 October 2021 19:03
To: Tag discussion, strategy and related tools <tagging at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Tagging] When does highway=footway become highway=pedestrian?

I think this example is a bit more complex if you look into it, and there are a couple of issues that are worthy of separate discussion thread.

Firstly,  when should highway=footway become a pedestrian area? Ultimately a subjective decision, but I personally consider whether the way has widened to beyond 5 meters and whether movement of pedestrians is not expected to be simply linear. Some pedestrian ways wider than 5m exist because a common 2m wide footway/sidewalk would not be wide enough to contain a large number of pedestrians and I would not map these as a Pedestrian Area. In the given example the location has clearly been widened to create an area, and I think it is acceptable to map this as an area with a way mapped through it.

Second issue, specific to this example, is the impact of access to bicycles. Current, and historic street level imagery shows this location had a standard approx 2m sidewalk up to 2016 at which time the location was developed to create the current arrangement. Importantly there are now statutory "shared use" signs at the entrance to this area/way. This means there is, with regard to UK legal definitions, no footway/sidewalk present. The way and area falls legally under the UK legal definition of Cycle Track (with shared use by pedestrians). The use of "path" is questionable, and appears controversial for UK mapping, with the most common way to map statutory Cycle Tracks being to use cycleway tagging, with in this case pedestrian=yes. The current path was mapped as a cycleway and was only changed to a path five months ago.

I'd argue the overall highway design of this area is an abomination, and fortunately statutory highways design guidance issued by the UK Government  in 2020 should mean this mess of a design should not happen again. Hopefully a clear separated cycleway is created or marked adjacent to the main road in the near future.

Third issue(?). So I'm arguing the whole area is legally, in the UK, a Cycle Track shared with pedestrians. So is the pedestrian area tag suitable? I still argue it was. ( I don't think we have a tag for areas that are equally pedestrian & cycle areas?). I'd map, or reinstate the cycleway, and retain the pedestrian area around it with the addition of bicycle=designated to the area.


Jass
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