Proposed features/Sidewalk as separate way

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The Feature Page for the approved proposal Sidewalk as separate way can be located at Tag:footway=sidewalk.
Sidewalk
Status: Approved (active)
Proposed by: Hanska
Tagging: footway=sidewalk
Applies to: Way
Definition:
Rendered as: highway=footway
Draft start: 2011-03-24
RFC start: 2011-03-24
Vote start: 2011-04-12
Vote end: 2011-04-26

Contents

Definition

From the Wikipedia article for sidewalk:

A sidewalk (or pavement, footpath, footway, and sometimes platform) is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade (height) and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb (British spelling: kerb). There may also be a strip of vegetation, grass or bushes or trees or a combination of these between the pedestrian section and the vehicular section (known as a parkway/tree lawn in the United States).

The term footway has a different meaning in the OSM community, but otherwise this should be a sufficient definition for our purpose.

Rationale

In some areas, sidewalks have been mapped as highway=footway, however this does not indicate that the footway is specifically a sidewalk, in other words that it is associated with a road. This proposal offers a refinement to the highway=footway tag, but does not change the definition, which will ensure correctness even for software which doesn't understand this proposal.

Tagging

Sidewalks should be mapped as ways (separate from the road) with the following tags:

Crossings

When a highway=crossing node is present on the main road, a way connecting the sidewalks on the two sides of the road should be mapped. Not to override the well-established meaning of highway=crossing, this way should be tagged as follows:

Additionally, if the crossing is also for bicycles, you should add cycleway=crossing (note if cyclists have to dismount to use the crossing use cycleway=crossing & bicycle=dismount

When no crossing is marked, but it's common to cross the street at that point, crossing=unmarked should be used at the intersection between the sidewalk and the street. Most of the times this should be used on minor, low-traffic roads.

Cycleways

This proposal is compatible with the current cycleway=* tagging scheme. The only difference is for crossings; see above.

Applies to

The proposed tagging applies to Way ways.

Rendering

The sidewalks would be rendered as highway=footways, but a renderer could also specially treat footway=sidewalk.

(Pedestrian) Routing

This tagging will be fully supported by Look and Listen Map.

Features/Pages affected

This proposal would further refine:

Related tags and proposals

While not part of this proposal, these are related existing and proposed tagging schemes that may be of interest to users of this proposal.

Sloped kerbs

If there are sloped kerbs (sloped curbs, ramps) going down/up (mainly to ease wheelchair access) between the sidewalks and the road, consider using the proposed amenity=sloped_curb (proposal here), or kerb=* (proposal), or other similar tags where appropriate.

Relation

There are proposals suitable for linking the sidewalks and the main road with a relation. associatedStreet, or the proposed street relations are possible candidates. The sidewalks could be added with role sidewalk.

Comments

For comments, please use the discussion page, or send a post to the tagging mailing list.

Voting

Please use {{vote|yes}} and {{vote|no}} to vote. If you {{vote|no}}, please remember to give a comment, so that we can improve the proposal!

Martin, in my opinion a sidewalk is a footway. footway=sidewalk is a refinement tag IMHO. I'm not going to change that part of the proposal, so thanks for voting no :) --Hanska 10:05, 12 April 2011 (BST)
Sorry, there's no new relation involved. The proposal suggests to use the well established type=associatedStreet relation, or the proposed type=street. There's no specific sidewalk-relation. --Hanska 12:13, 12 April 2011 (BST)
The associatedStreet tag is for addressing. That's what it says on its tag page. If you use it for something other than addressing, you're changing the meaning, and you never explicitly say that in this proposal, nor have you made a proposal to change the relation. --Emacsen 01:53, 13 April 2011 (BST)
Which meaning is that? Let's take this to the talk page. Alv 15:50, 12 April 2011 (BST)
No, highway=footway would still have the same meaning, i.e. "designated footpaths, i.e. mainly/exclusively for pedestrians". A "sidewalk" has the only additional feature of being paired to a road, that's why footway=sidewalk would be a refinement tag. Also, since when it's possible to veto a proposed feature? --Hanska 15:40, 12 April 2011 (BST)

Thanks for your comment. What tag would you use? --Hanska 15:47, 12 April 2011 (BST)
Can you please expand (here) why a separate tag is needed? Thanks --Hanska 20:08, 12 April 2011 (BST)

I don't understand, what does highway=path have to do with this proposal? And the additional tag is described in this proposal, it's footway=sidewalk. Maybe you wanted to vote yes? ;) --Hanska 21:08, 12 April 2011 (BST)
Can you please give a comment why you're opposing? Thanks. --Hanska 17:40, 13 April 2011 (BST)
Ed, this proposal permits finer details, and is not in contrast with the one you pointed to. How do you handle pedestrian routing with the "tagging the main road" method? --Hanska 17:39, 13 April 2011 (BST)
But this is a separate way tagged highway=footway, with an additional tag (footway=sidewalk) to indicate that it is associated with a road. I think we need to add some photos and mapped examples, because at least half the opposed votes are from misunderstandings. -- Joshdoe 01:46, 18 April 2011 (BST)
Can you please give your reasons for voting against this? -- Joshdoe 15:29, 19 April 2011 (BST)

Results

Criteria needed for approval: 8 unanimous approval votes or 15 total votes with a majority approval.

Required number of votes for a majority based on total votes of 30 is 16. The feature is approved.

See also

Retrieved from "http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Sidewalk_as_separate_way"
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