[Talk-ca] Tagging sidewalks as separate ways and issues with bicycle routing

[Nate Wessel]

I've been using OSRM a lot for bicycle routing in Toronto and haven't 
seen many route suggestions that I would consider terribly unreasonable. 
Sidewalks only ever appear at the start/end of a route because they may 
be slightly closer to the requested destination.

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-04-03 10:51 a.m., Pierre-Léo Bourbonnais wrote:
> For our researches, we use the OSRM routing engine, in which the 
> default profile for bicycle sets the footway to walking speed (5 km/h) 
> instead of bicycle speed (around 15-20 km/h), which is the same as 
> dismounting for routing purpose.
>
>> On Apr 3, 2020, at 10:46, Nate Wessel <bike756 at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:bike756 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Which routing engines are causing problems exactly? Routing a bicycle 
>> on a sidewalk may be appropriate/reasonable in some cases and over 
>> short distances where one could be instructed to dismount and walk. 
>> I'd be interested to see some of the problematic routes that are 
>> being suggested to see if there isn't a more elegant way of resolving 
>> this.
>>
>> I personally only use explicit access tags where there is clear 
>> signage indicating some type of special access restriction. Otherwise 
>> the default should be assumed. Routing engines /should/ be able to 
>> accommodate region differences in default values without needing to 
>> manually tag millions of ways. Whether they can or do allow that is a 
>> problem for the people developing the routing engines.
>>
>> Nate Wessel, PhD
>> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
>> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com/>
>>
>> On 2020-04-03 10:39 a.m., John Whelan wrote:
>>> I'd recommend bicycle=no and I live in Ottawa.  In Ottawa footpaths 
>>> that connect in general are bicycle=yes as they come under municipal 
>>> regulation but a sidewalk on a highway comes under provincial 
>>> legislation which bans bicycles on sidewalks.  Sparks street is fun 
>>> I think you are not permitted to ride your bicycle but I'm unsure if 
>>> this is provincial, municipal or it might even be NCC which is 
>>> federal of course.
>>>
>>> In the UK they are banned by law but in certain cities the Chief 
>>> Constable has stated the law will not be enforced within the police 
>>> force boundaries as a letter of interpretation.  It might be nice 
>>> for Ottawa to do the same sometime but there again we have City of 
>>> Ottawa police, OPP, RCMP and of course the PPS.
>>>
>>> Cheerio John
>>>
>>> James wrote on 2020-04-03 10:25 AM:
>>>> I don't think it's more tagging for the renderer as much as it's 
>>>> being more specific(more data) to specify a abstract view: without 
>>>> knowledge of Canadian/Provincial/Municipal laws about biking on 
>>>> sidewalks.
>>>>
>>>> I think Montreal and Gatineau are more enforced as Ottawa it is 
>>>> illegal to bike on the sidewalk, but people are still doing it, but 
>>>> that's beside the point.
>>>>
>>>> On Fri., Apr. 3, 2020, 10:18 a.m. Pierre-Léo Bourbonnais via 
>>>> Talk-ca, <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org 
>>>> <mailto:talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Hi!
>>>>
>>>>     I would like to start a discussion on how we should deal with
>>>>     sidewalks tagged separately, like it is is done in downtown
>>>>     Ottawa and like we are starting to do in the Montreal region.
>>>>
>>>>     The issue is that by default highway=footway with or without
>>>>     footway=sidewalk should have an implicit bicycle=no by default
>>>>     according to this page:
>>>>     https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access_restrictions
>>>>
>>>>     However, some osm users told me I should tag them with
>>>>     bicycle=no everywhere because routing engines use sidewalks for
>>>>     bicycle routing which is illegal in most part of Canada.
>>>>
>>>>     What are your thoughts on this ? Should we adapt to routing
>>>>     engines or should routing engines fix the issue themselves?
>>>>
>>>>     Thanks!
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
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