Questions & Answers - Pedestrians First

This talk will describe what makes a city walkable, discuss the experience of using OSM to measure walkability, and explore possibilities for improving that measurement in the future. ( https://2020.stateofthemap.org/sessions/RANPLK/ )

DEMO: https://pedestriansfirst-southafrica.itdp.org Github: https://github.com/ITDP   https://github.com/ITDP/pedestriansfirst (This is the right repository, yes?) Email: taylor.reich@itdp.org

1. [DONE] How does elevation factor into the evaluation of walkability, as it can often reduce how far can be walked in a given time period?
2. [DONE] How can I suggest a city to be added? – For example Berlin, Germany.
3. [DONE] Have you talked to people who have used Pedestrian First to get feedback, do different parts of the world have different amounts of interest in finding walkability?
4. Great project and very timely! When you think about/consider walkability do you also consider/take into account that in many parts of the world - streets & their sidewalks are also market places and not only as transit. Great to see you acknowledge it:) Thanks - Anni (rosymaps -chicago)
5. [DONE] How many people are working on Pedestrians First? Are you working with other groups? - Gregory
6. Have you thought of building a pedestrian-focused map layer?  In the same way there is opencyclemap, for example+1+1
   1. Taylor: I haven’t thought about this! I don’t know what it would mean - email me! taylor.reich@itdp.org
   2. Will do, but it’s mostly a tile set which emphasizes pedestrian features rather than car features, https://opencyclemap.org/
7. [DONE] Do you engage with local communities/mappers or rely soley on the OSM Data? There are many organised community groups e.g WIEGO who supports informal workers who spend a lot of their time on streets and could be a valuable partner to deepen the map in developing cities. Anni (rosymaps chicago)
8. [DONE] Any thoughts on walkability and security: In a lot of African cities… maybe all cities aound the world, a lot of violent attacks occcur along pedestrian walks..making a lot of people in this cities to prefer other modes of transport.

Comments:

1. Oh look, this store owner has cordoned off this typical Taiwan sidewalk: https://goo.gl/maps/Hh45xQZyX3W4YXYc8 and even AI tools won’t get the goverment to enforce the “laws” -jidanni
   1. Often they even eat up one traffic lane too. So sidewalk eaten, and people + cars share the only remaining lane. So sure sidewalks exisit (underneath the buildings they put on top of them.)
2. All that detail is great. But if carto (the default OSM map style) doesn’t render it or allow zooming to it, “why should I map it?”
   1. OSM is a database, there are many ways to render the data, not just carto. For example a smartphone app may be more appropriate to navigate and they consume tags not visible in carto.
      1. Well Joe Public goes to OSM.org for his impression of “OSM”.
3. Placing items too close to roads gets them eaten in carto.
   1. ahhh – you mean, like people mapping sidewalks and sidewalk amenities? or are you talking about the data coming out of Peds First?
      1. E,g,, tourist points of intrest. Too near a road: boom, eaten. GitHub issue response: well (in the west) things are never that close to roads. Electric poles also end up rendered “embedded” in roads they are on the side of (when we edit them).
      2.  That definitely sounds like a problem. We’re not doing anything on the OSM data collection side - although we could be interested in some mapathon collaborations! - we just take the data from OSM and use it :)

Questions from Taylor for the audience:

1. Can you imagine using Pedestrians First in your city? If so, how? In what role?
   1. My city is already walkable and transport statistics show it as an important transport for work etc. Post-Covid19 there are changes to encourage further walking routes
   2. Yes, I’ve been exploring something similar to look at how Liverpool (where I live) could become a “15 minute city”.  That’s bikes as well as walking, but mapping the amenities is something I want to add to it - http://15minutecity.mcqn.com/
   3. Japanese cities tend to prioritize pedestrians more than before. (Nefore they didn’t even have many sidewalks)
      1. My city (Nishinomiya city) is functionally compact, and due to the effects of covid-19 I haven’t boarded a car or train for three months.
2. Do you have any suggestions for how we could improve Pedestrians First, either through OSM or other data sources, especially to measure street-level walkability?
   1. Commonly available tags such as speed linit and lanes help calculate crossability for pedestrians+1
   2. Further pedestrain tags perhaps that reflect details of how accessible a road or route is, we could use living streets or lighting to highlight safe streets for walking. Tags on road for pavements (side walks).+1

AUDIO BREAKING UP Audio gone