[OSM-talk] Ways in old mediterranean and similar towns.

[Gilles Bassière]

Le jeudi 22 mars 2012 à 10:44 +0100, Janko Mihelić a écrit :
> 2012/3/22 Maarten Deen <mdeen at xs4all.nl>
>         
>         In Barcelona I encountered this street:
>         <http://maps.google.nl/maps?ll=41.380584,2.181439&spn=0.000779,0.001894&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=41.380584,2.181439&panoid=Z5Al9C_PiNq_MeNrDM36dw&cbp=12,300.97,,0,-0.64>
>         
>         In OSM it is a highway=pedestrian:
>         <http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=41.380561&lon=2.181011&zoom=18&layers=M>
>         I would not map this as a footway.
>  
> Why not? Why do people in cities hate footways?

I understand your position and I somehow agree with you: the usage of
pedestrian/footway/path is not clearly defined at all. It took me a long
time to make sense of these values and I'm aware that other contributors
use it in a (slightly) different manner. A contributor may describe a
way as "footway" while another would describe the same way as
"pedestrian" and there is no rule to decide who is wrong and who is
right...

So, there is no clear definition, agreed. However, in the maps linked
from your original post, I can see a few highway=footway. This basically
means that local contributors did make a difference between pedestrian
streets and footways.

I also feel like there is a difference between pedestrian and footway. I
can't state any clear rule but I usually use 3 values (pedestrian,
footway, path) depending on the context (dense urban, residential or
rural? paved? wide? commercial/business area? low traffic?). I tend to
use very few footways, I'm not sure why. Maybe because our cities are
mostly crowded with cars and ways are usually wide and paved. Maybe
because urban planners tend to eradicate the ways that fit in my
perception of a "footway". Maybe this perception is the result of a
cultural heritage (I live in an old Mediterranean city). The sole thing
that I can say for sure is that I don't "hate" footways :) It is just
that I don't often meet such ways (according to my own perception,
again).

Finally, the debate is more about replacing or not some "imperfect"
tags. Keep in mind that tags have emerged from the community and are
usually the result of a consensus. Should we replace it with a
well-thought tag set? Will it be accepted by the community? No-one can
tell. If you feel like this must be improved, try to make a better
proposal, see how contributors will discuss it, see if it gets voted and
finally used. I think it would be a relevant debate but I remain
doubtful about the issue.

Good luck :)

-- 
Gilles Bassière - Web/GIS software engineer
http://gbassiere.free.fr/