[OSM-talk] Software goes on, brain goes off...

[Nathan Edgars II]

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:27 AM, Nic Roets <nroets at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Nathan Edgars II <neroute2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> As others have said, foot=no when pedestrians are legally allowed is a
>> bad idea. As long as you walk against traffic, drivers will usually
>> see you, and you can easily see and get out of the way of any vehicles
>> unless the paved area extends all the way to the edge of the
>> right-of-way. The idea that one should not walk on certain roadways
>> where walking is legal, simply because certain drivers can't drive, is
>> ridiculous, and leads to legal restrictions that prohibit reasonable
>
> Nathan, the problem is providing good routing instructions to average
> people. If we can't provide that we will loose people to Google Map
> Maker, Waze, Tom Tom etc.

Then we'll lose them. If they want incorrect tagging, we don't have to
cater to them.
>
> There are many reasons why a routing engine should not follow the
> legal definition of right of way:
> 1. Safety (as discussed here).
> 2. Permissive. Fortunately a tag was defined for it long ago.
> 3. An illegal barrier (gate or fence) has been erected. And you may
> think that this strange, but it happens frequently in South Africa. In
> fact, it has happened that the municipality wanted to remove one of
> them and the residents association obtained an injunction against the
> municipality on the basis that removing it will cause the crime rate
> to return to unacceptable levels. So sometimes it is not even possible
> to determine the legal status of a right of way.
> 4. Driving on some tracks it will cause unnecessary environmental
> damage, like erosion. Sometimes such an opinion is debatable, but
> there are cases where a clear majority of local residents feel the
> same way. Usually the authorities will signpost it (effectively
> removing the right of way), but that may not always be the case.
> 5. Other things that we can't forsee right now.
>
We're not talking about cases where the public may have a theoretical
right to use a way, but it's de facto private. We're talking about the
case of a high-traffic road where pedestrians are allowed, despite the
wishes of bad drivers.

> When I map, I just want to create a useful map. And when I write
> software it should be backward compatible with old data and forward
> compatible with new data and still give reasonable results. I don't
> want to waste time on finding the legal status of everything.
>
Usually legal status, or at least de facto status, is simple: is there
a sign prohibiting pedestrians? Otherwise you're making people who
want to walk somewhere that's only accessible by a "dangerous" road
waste time finding if it's legal to do so.