[Talk-us] Fwd: Sidewalks as footpaths

[Clifford Snow]

On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 7:32 AM, Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com> wrote:

> The biggest issue here is usage. It's not "what mappers should do",
> but "What mappers actually do" and what mappers actually do is not to
> create relations. Most sidewalks are either mapped as separate ways,
> as attributes, or not at all.
>

Having moved from a walkable city to a rural city, I can attest to the need
to map sidewalks. Just walking to the nearest coffee shop requires walking
alongside of a secondary road. It would be nice to discover a route that
could be entirely via pedestrian ways.

Routing doesn't need names, it just needs connected ways and a means to
display the route. I agree that without names, it is difficult to give
written directions. But how often do we need written directions any more?
Don't most people use some sort of graphical display when looking at routes
anymore?

Serge is right about relationships. I've been lobbying a local non-profit
focused on walkable cities to switch to OSM instead publishing copyrighted
pdf maps. I wouldn't relish the thought of teaching them to create a
relationship for every sidewalk they entered. I don't even like creating
relationships.

Slightly off topic but http://www.flaviogortana.com/isoscope/ does a nice
job of using OSM data for walking a driving times cities.

Clifford




-- 
@osm_seattle
osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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