Sidewalk

A sidewalk 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).

How to map

Currently there are no accepted methods of mapping sidewalks, though there are two proposals:

• Proposed features/Sidewalk - adding sidewalk=both/left/right/none to the road itself
  • Advantages
    • Simple to add sidewalks with a single tag
    • Easy for routers to support (though none support it now) and to give directions such as "Follow the sidewalk along Main Street"
  • Disadvantages
    • Difficult to provide fine levels of detail such as barrier=*, tactile_paving=*, kerb=*, etc
    • Not currently supported by routing engines or renderers
• Proposed features/Sidewalk as separate way - creating the sidewalk as a separate way and using highway=footway, footway=sidewalk
  • Advantages
    • More (spatially) accurate representation of reality
    • Allows for finer level of detail, such as adding barrier=*, tactile_paving=*, kerb=*, etc
    • Works with existing routing engines and renderers
  • Disadvantages
    • More time consuming to map
    • Can produce a more cluttered map (though this can be mitigated)

See also

• Proposed features/Sidewalk
• Proposed features/Sidewalk as separate way