> On Nov 24, 2015, at 11:32 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdre...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> the road, they are quite capable of deciding which side to walk, where
> to cross and whether it is simply easier to walk on the road.
TL;DR:
Although I care more about the rendering than the routing, the routing in this
situation needs to be very explicit in places because sidewalks are crazy in
some countries. Simple routing may work in most of the globe, but there are
some cities/countries where pedestrian access conventions require very explicit
mapping and routing.
~~
I can imagine that this is a non-issue in a lot of places, as I grew up where
getting to the other side of the street was not such a big deal, nor was what
side of the street you were on a big deal when looking for routing information.
But there are plenty of places - or at least city centers - where it is a big
deal.
There are plenty of situations out here in small Japanese towns (let alone
Tokyo) where which side of the street you are on is very important for routing,
and it is impossible to change sides in a convenient/safe spot after a decision
has been made. Some have dead-end sidewalks (that end in walls and a narrow
shoulder) that put you into extremely hazardous situations (being right next
to traffic against a wall/guardrail - which they do all the time), or put you
onto walkways onto bridges where you cannot take walkways that lead away from
the opposite side, or there are access stairs to the pedestrian walkways that
run under the bridge that only connect on one side of the bridge (leading to
300 meters or more of walking around the longer route). as most Japanese towns
are in valleys or near water, there are tons of bridges everywhere - some with
really weird pedestrian routing restrictions.
given the absolute psychotic nature of Japanese sidewalks throughout the whole
country, explicit sidewalk mapping is a very good thing. I was just in Tokyo
this evening - and I used 6 different kinds of footpaths - two were sidewalks
with severe access restrictions to keep people out of the street (large steel
pipe fencing along the road to keep people from Jaywalking) except at
crosswalks, down to one way alleys with the green paths. choosing the correct
side of the street makes a difference for certain ped access bridges to other
buildings, to subway and train entrances (which by no means are accessible from
the other side - steel pipe barrier and all), or lead to completely different
layers and tunnels depending on your side of the road.
Javbw
_______________________________________________
Tagging mailing list
Tagging@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
