Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

sent from a phone

> On 24. Apr 2018, at 20:56, Tobias Knerr  wrote:
> 
> * With separate ways, we don't know which road section a sidewalk
> belongs to.
> * This knowledge is necessary for many applications.


For routing I don’t think it’s very important, an application that comes to 
mind is in jurisdictions like Germany where you have the obligation to use a 
cycleway (i.e. you cannot use the road). For rendering it isn’t important to 
know which way the sidewalk refers to, it is more important to know it is a 
sidewalk at all.
From a practical point of view, people have often been omitting properties like 
“name” on sidewalks and cycletracks, which made it hard to give good turn by 
turn instructions, but this is not inherent to mapping sidewalks separately.

Cheers,
Martin
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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Mateusz Konieczny]

25. Apr 2018 07:01 by marc.ge...@gmail.com :


> I wonder why those arguments always pop up when we talk about separate
> sidewalks and not when we talk about separate cycleways.
> AFAIK it is common practice to map cycleways as separate ways in OSM
> as soon as there is a kerb.
>
> Don't we encounter the same problems in data processing for cycleways ?




What is preferable depends on what kind of processing and results one wants and 
also on mapping priorities.




I guess that people mapping and processing cycleways do it in way that tends to 
prefer mapping as a separate way unlike footways where some want sidewalk tag, 
some want footway lines.
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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Marc Gemis]

I wonder why those arguments always pop up when we talk about separate
sidewalks and not when we talk about separate cycleways.
AFAIK it is common practice to map cycleways as separate ways in OSM
as soon as there is a kerb.

Don't we encounter the same problems in data processing for cycleways ?

m.

On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 8:56 PM, Tobias Knerr  wrote:
> On 24.04.2018 02:17, Clifford Snow wrote:
>> But if you want
>> someone to use the data, then map it as separate ways.
>
> That's not the case, and it's a bit frustrating to read this just after
> I wrote a mail explaining this point. To reiterate:
>
> * With separate ways, we don't know which road section a sidewalk
> belongs to.
> * This knowledge is necessary for many applications.
>
> For such a fundamental property, "research scientists believe they can
> use the spatial proximity" is not good enough imo. It has to be
> practical to obtain this relationship from OSM data.
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Lauri Kytömaa]

Ed Loach wrote:

>where there is a verge so narrow you can step across it without stepping on 
>the grass.

Unless you're with a walker, a pram or a stroller, or in a wheelchair.

> or put arbitrary joining ways at intervals.
Only useful where there's a real connection anyway, i.e. a route
starts from or crosses the highway; be it a driveway (garages count),
crossing, footway (or similar) leading away from road, or the intended
connection between sidewalk segments across the intersecting road. I
don't think any of these are any more arbitrary than the fact that in
intersection the two crossing ways both describe the area inside the
intersection, i.e. if the ways were expanded into areas with their
width, the areas overlap where the ways cross, but that's just the way
the model is.


-- 
alv

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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Tobias Knerr]

On 24.04.2018 02:17, Clifford Snow wrote:
> But if you want
> someone to use the data, then map it as separate ways. 

That's not the case, and it's a bit frustrating to read this just after
I wrote a mail explaining this point. To reiterate:

* With separate ways, we don't know which road section a sidewalk
belongs to.
* This knowledge is necessary for many applications.

For such a fundamental property, "research scientists believe they can
use the spatial proximity" is not good enough imo. It has to be
practical to obtain this relationship from OSM data.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Ed Loach]

Clifford wrote:

> There is a good website that explains the separate way approach 
> http://opensidewalks.com
> I know the people who put it together and they convinced me it's the better 
> approach.

I would say separate ways make more sense in urban USA where you can't cross 
the road just anywhere, see e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6251431.stm

In the UK I would use sidewalk tags where the pavement (sidewalk) is only 
separated from the road by a kerb, and separate ways where there is something 
more (such as grass verge or fence or whatever). In the cases of verges I would 
then make sure private driveways, etc that cross the footpath are mapped so 
pedestrians can see the obvious places to cross without getting their shows wet 
should the grass be wet. You can still do things like sidewalk:surface if you 
want, and it appears many do:
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=sidewalk
Otherwise you start needing relations to show where separate sidewalk and road 
ways allow you to cross, or put arbitrary joining ways at intervals. Admittedly 
this method of mapping doesn't cope with the situation where there is a verge 
so narrow you can step across it without stepping on the grass.

Ed 



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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Clifford Snow]

As someone who as mapped sidewalks both as metadata to an existing road and
as separate ways, my recommendation is to map as separate ways. Let me
explain why I recommend separate ways over the metadata approach.

Communities are starting to put emphasis on alternatives like public
transportation, cycling and walking to driving for a number of reasons, For
example traffic congestion. green house gases, and health benefits to name
three. There is also a segment of the population with limited mobility
issues that need to commute via wheelchairs and public transportation. All
of this requires some form of routing. Routing via metadata breaks down at
the intersection, especially complex ones. There is the routing problem
that Mateusz Konieczny mentioned of what to call the sidewalk, but research
scientists believe they can use the spatial proximity of the road to give
instructions such as "walk on the left side of Main Street towards..."

Separate ways also have the advantage of being able to capture data on the
physical aspects of the way, such as surface material, width, smoothness,
tactile pads, kerb cuts, etc.

I've talked to some GIS folks about their sidewalk data. Some have some
beautiful polygon sidewalk data. But none of the data is any good if we
can't route. It's only purpose is to serve as a inventory of sidewalks.

The one advantage to the metadata approach is speed. It's much quicker to
add sidewalk=left/right/both/none. But like the cities standalone sidewalk
data, it doesn't route all that well.

Jmapb - if your goal is just to map sidewalks as inventory - then use the
metadata approach. I can attest that it is easier. But if you want someone
to use the data, then map it as separate ways.

There is a good website that explains the separate way approach
opensidewalks.com. I know the people who put it together and they convinced
me it's the better approach.

Clifford




On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 1:26 PM, Mateusz Konieczny 
wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 19:25:12 +0200
> Tobias Knerr  wrote:
>
> > Comparing the mapping styles solely based on ease of mapping would
> > only make sense if separate ways were able to express the same
> > information contained in sidewalk tags.
>
> Note that some information may not be expressed (or extremely hard)
> with sidewalk tags.
>
> For added fun, some people map sidewalks in even greater detail, using
> area:highway (and sometimes forget to add either sidewalk tag or
> sidewalk mapped as line, what is also causing problems).
>
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-- 
@osm_seattle
osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Mateusz Konieczny]

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 19:25:12 +0200
Tobias Knerr  wrote:

> Comparing the mapping styles solely based on ease of mapping would
> only make sense if separate ways were able to express the same
> information contained in sidewalk tags.

Note that some information may not be expressed (or extremely hard)
with sidewalk tags.

For added fun, some people map sidewalks in even greater detail, using
area:highway (and sometimes forget to add either sidewalk tag or
sidewalk mapped as line, what is also causing problems).

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[OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Tobias Knerr]

On 18.04.2018 05:03, Andrew Harvey wrote:
> highway, surface, maxspeed, maxweight, maxheight, width, oneway, access,
> lanes, turn:lanes, lit, parking:lane:left, parking:lane:right,
> parking:condition:left, parking:condition:right,parking:lane:left:type,
> parking:lane:right:type, etc.

The percentage of roads tagged with all these details is vanishingly
small, and will likely remain so for at least another decade.

At the level of detail that's realistically achievable in the medium
term, sidewalk tags make a lot of sense: They're easy to use for the
common case (where sometimes not even the existence of sidewalks is
mapped yet), and still allow for micromapping in pockets of unusually
high data quality.

> I realise editors can and do abstract some of this, but if we can put
> all those sidewalk attributes on their own ways it makes it much easier
> to map by reducing the complexity of the highway centerline.

Comparing the mapping styles solely based on ease of mapping would only
make sense if separate ways were able to express the same information
contained in sidewalk tags.

That's not the case, though: With separate sidewalk ways, it's
impossible (in the general case) to figure out which road section that
sidewalk way belongs to.

Not having this basic information available makes separately mapped
sidewalks unusable for entire categories of applications – sometimes
leading to worse outcomes than not having the sidewalk mapped at all.
And while you could fix that issue with relations, this would clearly
not be easier for mappers than using sidewalk tags is.

As for the original question: sidewalk=separate seems like an attempt to
solve the aforementioned issue, but it does not actually achieve this
goal – it only tells you that *some* sidewalk way belongs to this
section of road, but does not help you to find out *which* sidewalk way
that is. As such, it's not a very useful tag, and not a compelling
reason to map asymmetric real-world situations in a symmetric way.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Andrew Harvey]

On 18 April 2018 at 06:30, Jmapb  wrote:

> (My personal feeling is that that it's better to avoid mapping sidewalks
> as separate ways unless there's a compelling reason that would outweigh the
> additional data clutter and routing complications. In some circumstances --
> those where walking on the sidewalk, or on a particular side of a road with
> two sidewalks, has noticeably different routing implications -- it seems
> like a good idea.)
>

It means less tags on the road which makes it easier to edit manually. A
road already has:

highway, surface, maxspeed, maxweight, maxheight, width, oneway, access,
lanes, turn:lanes, lit, parking:lane:left, parking:lane:right,
parking:condition:left, parking:condition:right,parking:lane:left:type,
parking:lane:right:type, etc.

A sidewalk also has it's own:

maxspeed (some places where bicycles can use the sidewalk and sections have
signposted speed), maxweight, width, access, surface

On top of that the highway needs to be split every time just one of those
tags changes meaning you end up with many short segment ways.

I realise editors can and do abstract some of this, but if we can put all
those sidewalk attributes on their own ways it makes it much easier to map
by reducing the complexity of the highway centerline.

It means we can use say the exact same tags on the separate sidewalk rather
than prefixing them with sidewalk:left:width, sidewalk:left:bicycle, etc.
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[OSM-talk] Sidewalk symmetry

[Jmapb]

The wiki contains some suggestions/guidelines about when to map 
sidewalks as separate footways versus when to encode them as tags on the 
main road. The basic recommendation seems to be that if there's a 
barrier or even a strip of grass between the two, a separate way is fine 
and even sometimes preferred (and the road should be tagged 
sidewalk=separate to indicate that it's been mapped as a separate way), 
but if the sidewalk is directly adjacent to the road, better to just 
imply it with a sidewalk=left/right/both tag.


My gut tells me that a corollary should be: If the sidewalk on one side 
of the road is mapped as a separate way, then the sidewalk on the other 
side (if there is one) should also be a separate way, even if it's 
directly adjacent to the road due to asymmetry of sidewalk design. Does 
this sound right? I certainly don't see any clean way to tag a road to 
indicate that one of its sidewalks has been mapped as its own way and 
the other hasn't.


(My personal feeling is that that it's better to avoid mapping sidewalks 
as separate ways unless there's a compelling reason that would outweigh 
the additional data clutter and routing complications. In some 
circumstances -- those where walking on the sidewalk, or on a particular 
side of a road with two sidewalks, has noticeably different routing 
implications -- it seems like a good idea.)


Thanks for you thoughts, jmb


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