[Talk-GB] [Talk-gb-london] Separate sidewalks added by #waymap-project-SB in West London

[Robert Skedgell]

I am also very much in favour of adding separate sidewalks where there 
is a benefit for pedestrian routing or accessibility. I have added quite 
a few of them, mostly on main roads.

Where they can be less useful, even when done properly, is on long 
residential streets without formal crossing points or even connections 
with driveways and alleys. These can produce some rather "scenic" routes.

On 17/01/2023 09:18, David Davis wrote:
> I am generally in favour of explicit drawing of pavements and pedestrian 
> crossing points where possible,
> but it does sound from your description that this user's enthusiasm has 
> somewhat over-reached their skillz ;)
> 
> If possible though, an effort should be made to explain and educate them 
> as to what technicalities they are getting wrong,
> so they can direct their considerable energies more productively :)
> 
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 8:57 AM Robert Skedgell <rob at hubris.org.uk 
> <mailto:rob at hubris.org.uk>> wrote:
> 
>     We have had a large number of separate sidewalks added around Shepherds
>     Bush, mostly by user alisonlung (possibly based in the USA) with some
>     contributions by ABullock with the hashtag #waymap-project-SB
> 
>     I have several problems with this:
>     - there seems to be no documentation or explanation of this organised
>     editing project (or I'm looking in the wrong place)
>     - alisonlung has consistently ignored changeset comments from other
>     users
>     - the sidewalks were frequently decorative: they may look pretty on OSM
>     Carto, but often provide no or negative benefit for pedestrian routing
>     - some sidewalks were added with layer=-1, strongly suggesting that the
>     mapper(s) had no idea what the tag means
>     - some cycleways around Shepherds Bush Green were changed to footways
>     without adding bicycle=yes, which I consider to be vandalism
> 
>     I have tried to fix some of these, but the volume and the amount of
>     fiddly realignment required seems disproportionate.
> 
>     I propose to do the following:
>     - retain and repair sidewalks on main roads
>     (trunk/primary/secondary/tertiary) where there are defined crossing
>     points, or where there is a clear benefit to pedestrian routing
>     - delete most sidewalks added by these users on residential streets,
>     leaving crossings as nodes on the highway
> 
>     -- 
>     Robert Skedgell (rskedgell)
>