[Talk-GB] Legally permitted vs inadvisable

Thu Mar 9 06:05:58 UTC 2017

If I’m planning a walk for myself or leading a group in a rural area such as the Peak District I would always assume for an A or B road sidewalk=none as the default.   Because of a lack of detail on most maps for sidewalks and verges most people out walking in rural areas are likely to plan routes avoiding such roads.  I must admit I don’t know what the legal status is when it comes to walking along a verge.  If enough people walk along a verge could/should it become sidewalk=*, surface=grass/ground/mud/...?  If there was a particular need to use a section of an A or B road I would currently have to go out and survey it or take a look at any suitable images online.

As a consequence of the above and my involvement in OSM I do now try and put in sidewalks as there is the potential to produce a much better map for walkers in rural areas using OSM.  Sidewalks are certainly a feature I would like to add to the maps I put on my Garmin GPS.  I’m not aware of any online map that displays sidewalks.  It would certainly be useful if there was one.

I suspect routing for walking may need to be different when it comes to rural and urban areas.  The latter tends to be about getting from A to B.  In rural areas routing is most likely to be about a limited distance starting and finishing at A and taking in specific features.

I would certainly encourage people to map sidewalks in rural areas as there seem to be no rules as to where they are likely to be found and they are a very useful map feature for walkers.

Dudley

________________________________
From: Philip Barnes <phil at trigpoint.me.uk>
Sent: 08 March 2017 12:49
To: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Legally permitted vs inadvisable

On Wed, 2017-03-08 at 11:41 +0000, SK53 wrote:
Inadvisable is probably too dependent on the individual and their particular situation.
Absolutely, doing this could make many PROW inaccessible.

Phil (trigpoint)

As ever it is better to try adding something more objective to the data which allows these routing situations to be better handled. The current tags which allow this are sidewalk & verge. I think a sensible solution for your generic case would be to disallow pedestrian routing along A-roads which have sidewalk=none (perhaps when maxspeed > 30 mph). Verges will not be practicable for many pedestrians (Mums with pushchairs, toddlers, older people etc) so I think can be ignored.

This would still allow routing where no-one has surveyed or tagged sidewalk provision, and is therefore less likely to break places where there are pavements or paths. It also allows those cases where walking along the road is inadvisable to be mapped on a case-by-case basis.

Other refinements might include considering whether a road is urban or rural (Richard Fairhurst does this on cycle.travel<http://cycle.travel>): OS Open Data provides a decent data set of this & the one I generate from OSM is very similar.
cycle.travel | Commuting, Bike Maps, Cycle Routes, Touring<http://cycle.travel/>
cycle.travel
Smart Turns – new on cycle.travel's route-planner. New Saturday 23 April · 6. Today cycle.travel’s route-planner gets the biggest single improvement since it ...

On a broader community level: mapping presence of absence of pavements or other paths alongside main roads in the countryside (and when absent features of the verge) is probably something we should aim to do alongside completing speed limits for trunk roads. Much can be done from Mapillary images.

Jerry

On 8 March 2017 at 11:27, Stuart Reynolds <stuart at travelinesoutheast.org.uk<mailto:stuart at travelinesoutheast.org.uk>> wrote:
What’s the thinking about tagging foot=no along busy dual carriageways? Specifically I would like to remove a walk from a stretch of the A2 near Barham in Kent where there are bus stops, but no footways along the verge (and indeed very little in the way of verge at some points). It is technically legal to walk along the A2 from the junction to the south, but it is most certainly not advisable and you would be taking your life into your hands if you did so.

BTW, access to the northbound bus stop is via a footpath through the woods. Technically the southbound one is accessed via a footpath across a break in the crash barriers - but we don’t have that on OSM, and I’m not about to add it in.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/26237116#map=18/51.21188/1.16626

Regards,
Stuart Reynolds
for traveline south east & anglia

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