Pavements

[Scott]

I am making a couple of urban maps. Not for anything particularly important or exciting - the sort of thing that may get used for a club evening event. Should I include the boundary between pavement and road on the map? ISSOM2007 says:

Distinct differences within the paved area can be represented with the symbol (529.1), if they serve navigation.
[My emphasis.]

Now, I've run on a fair few urban maps and I can't remember ever having used the presence/absence of a pavement for navigational purposes, so to me it is not at all apparent that having the edge of a pavement marked on a map does "serve navigation", except perhaps in a few rare cases - if anything extra black lines clutter the map.

On the other hand, pretty much every UK urban map I have - including several British Sprint Champs - slavishly marks every pavement (the only exceptions I have to hand are distracted's maps of Oxford and Cambridge, which have pretty much no pavements, and AH's London, which appears to use them selectively).

Any thoughts as to what I should do?

[Mrs H]

Scott - I can distinctly remember using pavements a couple of times where some irregularity in the kerb shape on the map showed me which alleyway I was at. The pavement line in very fine - for what it's worth - I'm personally in favour of them.

[Sloop]

Pavement lines are particularly helpful at junctions and roundabouts where there tends to be quite a lot of tarmac and the thin line helps separate the bits where you might meet a car from the bits you won't.

[Scott]

I agree roundabouts (and traffic islands) are useful features and should certainly be marked. Similarly, the pavements around complex junctions (there are a couple of good examples on the London map) can be very helpful.

I was wondering more about the standard pavement, where you often end up with an extra black line which is simply parallel to the black line marking the edge of buildings or gardens. Useful or extra clutter?

I was going to upload an example extract to show the sort of area that I think could probably do without them, but "the board attachment quota has been reached".

[King Penguin]

I consider roadside pavement edge lines to be unnecessary clutter.
I can't recall using one on the run for navigation.
Maybe there is a case for them on main roads if there is only a footpath along one side (for safety reasons), but I would not bother on cul-de-sacs or minor residential roads.

However, if your source of base data includes them anyway, I would equally not spend time on removing them (unless this is quicker than correcting errors).

Marking surfaced paths through parks etc. is a different matter, and these should be mapped.

[awk]

Having slavishly mapped all the pavements for Otley, I was persuaded by my more experienced controller that this was not necessary, and so removed most of them - including just the pavements along main roads and selected others where the pavement/road edge was significantly different to the edge of the tarmaced area. This seemed to work well - certainly the map was vastly more legible - with one small comment where a major road hadn't got a pavement along it, and competitors had thought it would have! I'd certainly go down that route next time.

[andypat]

I dont think there is one answer to that. I've mapped our village with pavements and its perfectly legible and the pavements can be useful as sometimes only on one side of the main road, but the roads arent as dense as some urban areas. Patrick has left them off for Erskine which seems to make for a clearer map as Erskine is way more complex. But there are parts where there are grassy areas fitted into the pavements which look a bit like odd wee islands without the pavements marked - as always compromise and common sense is needed and whatever works for the mapper and the area I say.

[madmike]

I dont think there is one answer to that.....

as always compromise and common sense is needed and whatever works for the mapper and the area I say.

d'accordo all that and would add consistency to Andypat's list

[AndyC]

I dont think there is one answer to that.....

as always compromise and common sense is needed and whatever works for the mapper and the area I say.

d'accordo all that and would add consistency to Andypat's list

" a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" Emerson (via Isaac Asimov) -important word is "foolish" IMHO

[Roger]

I was wondering more about the standard pavement, where you often end up with an extra black line which is simply parallel to the black line marking the edge of buildings or gardens. Useful or extra clutter?

Clutter. I was the controller who suggested that Distracted should try removing (most of) the Oxford pavements and we both thought that the result was a great improvement. As others have said, though, traffic islands etc should stay on. Why not try both (perhaps on a smallish part of your map) and ask a few people which works best?

[mappingmum]

I think it depends what is relevant and distinctive and what adds benefit to the map. If it's a standard pavement of 1-2m running parallel to the road then I delete it. But if it protrudes in a distinctive way then I include it - even if it involves incorrectly "joining" the pavement to a wall/building.

[andypat]

I wonder if the pavement argument is of any relevance to the junior urban debate.
As a planner/parent, the presence of pavements on the map certainyl make it simpler to determine whether the new BOF guidelines are being adhered to vis busy road crossings. Theres a world of difference to running a long a pavement to running along a road with traffic, but both look the same if you delete the pavement.

[IanD]

Supposing some roads have standard pavements on both sides, but others have a pavement on one side only.

Do you take pavements off roads with two, but show the single pavement on roads with one?

Or would it be less confusing to show all pavements?

[andypat]

As madmike suggets I think you need to be consistent (on the map) but that doesnt necessarily mean all maps need to be the same. Edinburgh http://www.elo.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=28&kieli=is a totally different place to Houston village http://www.clyde.routegadget.co.uk/clyde/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=6&kieli=for example.

Meant to add - I think it makes a difference what sacel the map is as well - 1:5000 would struggle with pavements more than 1:4000.

[DJM]

For info, Håvard Tveite, IOF Map Commission Chair (responsible for the development of ISSOM) writes:

A good debate!
"Edges" of/in paved areas should only be used when they provide valuable information to a competitor, since they do clutter the map, and make it more difficult to see where the runnable and passable areas are. It is especially important to leave edges of pavements out in complex city/town centres, where there is not much room for them.