[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - "is_sidepath" as a sidepath concept

[Alex]

> _Mainly_, I have concerns about the concept of a cycle path or foot 
> path being attendant to or a sidepath of another road.
>
> In Norway, we no longer have cycle paths and foot paths. We have 
> cycleways, footways and carriageways. It may seem like a small 
> difference in terminology, but it makes a large difference as part of 
> an overall mindset. Roads are roads, and different types of roads are 
> simply meant for different types of travel. 

I get your point, but that's not how urban planning and development 
usually thinks and works (unfortunately). In the reality of the vast 
majority of places in the world, a "street" is considered to consist of 
a central carriageway (mostly with motorised traffic) and side paths for 
walking or cycling that are related to each other. Both physically and, 
let's say, athmospherically.

The core of the proposal is that there is no sufficient "street concept" 
in OSM to group these elements. Instead, the "motorcar area" (i.e. 
carriageway) is often perceived as representing the entire street - for 
example, it is common and often discussed practice that only this line 
gets a name attribute (and many mappers still prefer to capture 
sidewalks and cycle paths only as an attribute of this street line). 
 From the point of view of a data consumer, there is no relation between 
a sidepath and a road anymore. Of course you can say that is the problem 
of the data consumer. Or we can offer more convenience.

What you can use it for is very diverse, a few possibilities are 
described in the proposal and there are even projects that already make 
use of it. It is difficult and maybe not useful to elaborate this in 
more detail, because it ultimately depends on the specific needs and 
creativity of data consumers.
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