Talk:Guidelines for pedestrian navigation

Way from Sidewalk to Beginning of Crossing

General question: what should I tag the way that connect from the sidewalk feature to the beginning of the crosswalk? Should I tag it as sidewalk or as a crossing?--IanVG (talk) 00:25, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi, IanVG. Use highway=crossing highway=footway + footway=crossing for the way that crosses from one sidewalk to another. You can provide more details using crossing=* in combination. --Dcapillae (talk) 07:47, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi. highway=crossing should only be used on nodes. If you have two sidewalks drawn as ways, you can join them with a way holding highway=footway + footway=cro*ssing. Look at the latter tag documentation for details and diagrams, as well as variants considering bicycles. This way should be connected to the node highway=crossing. If there is only one sidewalk drawn as a way, the way drawing the crossing can stop at the node. --Carto’Cité 20 November 2020

Hmmm, thanks for the responses, but I mean something slightly different. Consider a four-way crossing. I already have the crossings as ways mapped from each landing pad (or whatever its called) to the next. The incoming sidewalks, have only one one corner (consider top-left portion of four-way intersection, one sidewalk comes from left and the other comes from the top directions), but there are two different tactile pads from which crossings begin. Through communication with others, I've found that adding short spurs from beginning/end of the crossing ways to that corner node of the sidewalks can help add routing precision and additional info about pedestrian accessibility (the way as ramp/incline). My question is: whether or not that spur should be mapped as sidewalk or crossing. I'm leaning more to the sidewalk side at the moment, and it's what I'll stick to unless otherwise convinced.--IanVG (talk) 01:01, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I think I see what you mean, feel free to point to an example though. Connecting the crossings with footways is indeed useful for routing engines. As such ways are located on the sidewalk I agree they should be tagged as such : highway=footway + footway=sidewalk.--Carto’Cité 18:03, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Can you link an example location? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:04, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Connecting a footway with no contrived detour

Your diagram “Connecting a footway with no contrived detour” contains a misleading detail: a pedestrian crossing that connects only to one sidewalk. The crossing should be simply removed from the graphic, as it has no function.

BTW The middle sub-diagram in the panel is graphically incomplete, as the crossing dot is missing on the road tagging the pedestrian crossing.

If, however, the road had two sidewalks (two green side lines in your graphic style), tagged with sidewalk=both, the crossing would be tagged with a dot and highway=crossing. In that case the contrived detour would be a suitable way to connect the footway with the crossing. Not a good solution, but necessary to produce a correct routing.

--voschix (talk) 18:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Avoid creating unconnected stubs ???

On 9 April 2024 this phrase was added: "Avoid mapping a sidewalk stub which is not connected to anything at one end, as this results in a purely decorative sidewalk with no value for routing."

I do not agree with this (disclaimer: I have added hundreds of crosswalk stubs to OSM)

These are my reasons:

1. these stubs have no disadvantage for routers, they are only unpleasant to the eye
2. they are useful in those cases where separate footways are present on the ground, but are not (yet) mapped as separate ways, as they give a graphical hint to the mappers that a footway is missing in OSM
3. if there is a crosswalk, but there is no sidewalk to connect to, then it might be a good idea to write a letter to the local administration requesting a sidewalk.

I admit it is a bit untidy to see a footway stub when a sidewalk is present on the ground and is present in the OSM data as sidewalk=both/left/right mapped on the main highway.

--voschix (talk) 14:29, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

While I strongly disagree with you, as I feel that decorative sidewalks are little better than spam (unless there's a fixme or noexit node at the end of the sidewalk), I'll remove the edit.

We most likely live in different jurisdictions. Here in Italy, separate sidewalks and crossings are essential for foot routing or for the calculation of foot distances. We are supposed to use crossings, even if they are 100 meters away. You cannot just step onto the street and cross it where you like. Hence footway mapping is important, unfortunately. Or if you think of wheelchair users, they are supposed to use sidewalks where available, hence it is important to have them and the crossings on the map. --voschix (talk) 15:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that sidewalks and crossings are essential for foot navigation and have added a lot of them here in London for precisely that reason. I also add as much accessibility information at crossings for mobility and visually impaired users as I can, for the same reasons as you. On the other hand, a sidewalk stub going most of the way along a side road isn't helping anyone get around, it's pointless decoration which gives the visual impression that a separate sidewalk has been mapped when this is not true in any useful sense. When I come across these, I either connect them via the next crossing (usually the better option, but time-consuming), add fixme=continues at the end, or truncate back to the previous crossing/intersection (some decorative sidewalks added by hit-and-run mappers e.g. with MapRoulette). --Rskedgell (talk) 15:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)