Proposal talk:Number of steps

Why steps count and not step count? It doesn't sound right to have the first word in its plural form as the tag indicates the number of individual steps, not the number of step aggregates. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 12:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

No particular reason, actually. You’ve got a point there, I’m going to change that right now. --Tordanik 13:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I assume this is to help route planning for disabled/mobility limited people. The direction of the steps (up/down) would be useful as well, can the direction of the way be considered as 'UP'?? --Mungewell 14:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a simple sub-tag addition to highway=steps. I'm not sure about rendering the number or not. I do think that there should also be a sub-tag for wheelchair accessability, if there is a attached ramp. --Nickvet419 23:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

There already is wheelchair=yes, I’d suggest to simply use that on the stairs. --Tordanik 09:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• This sounds a reasonable tag for micromapping and accessability. It is also potentially useful for cyclists, carrying a bike up 5 steps is no big deal, up 25 may make a longer route practical. Can I therefore suggest that the definition be tweaked slightly to "step_count gives the actual or approximate number of individual steps" MikeCollinson 12:46, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course you can enter an estimated number of steps and maybe leave a note telling others that your value is not exact. As always with our data (width tags, coordinates, …), we use the most accurate information currently available, even if it is not as precise as it could be. Do you really feel this needs to be stated explicitly? --Tordanik 18:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggest, but do not insist, yes. I am a bit anal about lawerly tinkering with definition wording, but the tighter we can make the original definition the less unexpectd argument or confusion it causes later. In this case, I'd certainly like this information captured without newbies thinking they actually have to go up the stairs and count them to be "right". MikeCollinson 13:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

When mapping highway=steps my accessibility concern is more about the quality/type rather than number(which could be estimated based on length of way or looking at contours). There are concrete steps near buildings and then there are countryside footpaths where 'steps' have been worn away(perhaps offically). -LastGrape 14:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Is anyone actually thinking of making an accessible map/router? I'm slightly interested in investigating it but maybe not interested enough to do it myself right now. -LastGrape 14:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

other issues

While we're at it: there should be a standard direction as Mungewell notes, and highway=steps should be applicable to nodes also. Could this be included in the proposal? Robx 16:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Some mappers might support step_count, but disagree with the default direction or node tagging – or the other way round. Most importantly, introducing step_count will not cause problems for software or invalidate existing tagging. Defining a standard direction, however, would require an estimated 50 % of current highway=steps to be reversed. Therefore, I don’t see any value in adding the issue of directions or node tagging to this proposal when a separate proposal can easily be created. --Tordanik 17:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Robx, as it is important if you have inclining or declaining steps, the mapping of steps on a node does not make any sense to me. --Lulu-Ann 16:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

+1 funny

We really need to be able to rate these things, I could really see +1 interesting and + 1 funny being applied.. :-) I think the step_count should have three discrete values 1,2,many.

Seriously though, shouldn't inclination/elevation gain, steepness, and ramp be more important than steps_count? Erik Johansson 08:56, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

/. fan? Well, I think that the number of steps is useful to roughly convey the length/size – the length of the way itself is often not very precisely mapped. Most importantly, however, counting the steps requires no additional tools, so data is easy to get – unlike some of the details you listed. Still, I’d like having those available, too. --Tordanik 14:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

/. great karma for sure. Well actually a step_count=30 can be very different in length, there are very few steps that are the same length over here even, just because their steepnes differs. A better way to extend the current scheme to "small, medium, large" the first two are shown on the wiki I only need to take a photo of an large one. Sure using highway=steps_small is pretty bad but highway=steps + size=small would work. Erik Johansson 06:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)