[Tagging] Foot / sidewalk access tagging

[stevea]

OSM is anarchy, a process, sometimes (mostly, I think) successful, though often messy.  It's not ringing up customer service and getting a Tier 3 professional answer, I'm sure you know that.  I don't need to say this, either, but "Patience!"  OSM is incremental.  (Sometimes, by millimeters or even microns!)

This is actually rather complicated, especially as "easements," a real thing in the real world, have hardly had their surface scratched in OSM.  It could get messy (I sigh, it's "usual") as in a whole Proposal et al, to tease apart how to map such easements, as they do appear to be extant in Texas (and other states).  I consider them a sort of "lazy legislation" where a pedestrian, for example, is expected to understand rather subtle aspects of law (property rights, trespass, etc.) and the legislature seems to have done the absolute minimum:  pass a law saying "can't walk in a roadway," pass a law making "mandatory but sometimes invisible" easements along roadways implicit, (so, the law says "they're there" but maybe you can't see them, even if you know them to legally exist), and dust your hands as "OK, we the ever-clever legislature are all done with this."  Leaves a bad taste in my mouth for both how I'm supposed to act as a pedestrian in such places (especially the ones with invisible easement — I might very well be on the wrong side of the road and could get ticketed on a really bad day) and for potential OSM tagging, which seems like it will need a "new headache" method of tagging (and mapping) these:  a big long strip of "easement" along every road where this is true?!  Ugh!  Say it ain't so!

> On Dec 18, 2022, at 2:11 PM, Brian M. Sperlongano <zelonewolf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Currently taking bets on how long it will take before someone actually answers the question I posed 😂 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 5:03 PM stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:
> My understanding (in Texas, and other states) in this case (where there is no sidewalk and it is not legal to walk "in the roadway") is that in cases like these, there will always be an "easement" along at least one side of the road, where utilities (wired poles, perhaps underground piping...) are allowed, and so, too, is granted "permission of access" to pedestrians, for the right to walk along such easement.  This isn't quite-exactly "public property," as the easement remains a "strip" of private property along stitched-together private parcels, but by virtue of it being "an easement," explicit "public access" (e.g. pedestrians walking) IS allowed through such an easement.  So, for example, an access=yes tag (if not already implied) might be appropriate to explicitly include.
> 
> So, say you're in Texas, there is a roadway (and you are not allowed to walk in it, lest you run afoul of "pedestrian-in-roadway" ordinances) and there is NO sidewalk.  In this case there IS an "easement" (whether populated by utilities or not) where pedestrians are allowed, because pedestrians must be able to use the right-of-way of the road, too.  Just not IN the roadway, but along it.  (And if there are wired poles along one side, choose that side).
> 
> On Dec 18, 2022, at 1:43 PM, Brian M. Sperlongano <zelonewolf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What I've been told (and someone showed me the law to back it up) is that apparently in Texas, IF there is a sidewalk, you are not allowed to walk in the roadway.
> > 
> > On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 4:42 PM Ivo Reano <reanoivo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Are you saying that in Texas you can't walk on a street that doesn't have a sidewalk?
> > Only in a city environment or also in a non-city environment?
> > Or in Texas if you're on foot you're going nowhere?
> > Definitely not human!
> <remainder redacted for brevity>
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