#DailyBloggingChallenge (04/10)
A topic that is quite dear to me is the question:
> When should one map a separate sidewalk in #OpenStreetMap?
In general there are two schemas:
(A) one maps it directly with road by using the `sidewalk` key, or
(B) one maps it as a separate way
For simple cases the (A) schema suffices, though for detail heavy cases, schema (B) is a better choice.
Examples of a simple case: the #sidewalk has the exact same surface and smoothness quality for the whole section.
It starts becoming problematic when either the surface and/or smoothness changes. Since each alteration will create an additional node onto the road. If it is one or two additions it might be acceptable but any more than that might question the sanity of throwing so much data onto the road. And this doesn't even concern with how the surface, smoothness, lanes count, bicycle lanes, etc are dealt on the road. If one pulled this to the extremes one would have so many nodes that one would quickly lose the oversight of which way section belongs to which feature and would be more prone that the wrong section would be altered.
This problem didn't mention how one would handle crossings or curb height or bus/tram stops or green spaces or any other amenity and POIs combinations between the sidewalk and road. The deeper one dives into all the potential possibilities that could exist, one quickly realized that schema (B) is the only sensible answer.
More responses/discussions about the topic can found here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/deptho/diary/401906
