Firstly, I’m sorry: I missed the point of your question; my reply focused on trying to find possible effects of the pedestrian access configuration, instead of how to edit them.

Off-thread, Jennifer explained (and is OK with me sharing) that the CityStrides app uses OSM data and has sometimes suggested unsuitable routes to run on. The good news is that CityStrides does now exclude segments mapped with the expressway=yes tag (ref). So that should no longer cause a problem.

However: the expressway=yes tag doesn’t completely exclude pedestrian access – and some of these segments are definitely unsuitable for walking. This segment has a ‘description’ tag to explain that: osm.org/way/889380754

Of the OSM tools I know, I think Overpass Turbo is a reasonable way to explore the problem, by writing map data queries.

I’ve drafted two that might help, either here or for future reference:

1. https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/2olJ

This highlights segments red where we might want to add foot=no to the map data.

1. https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/2olN

This returns the OSM identifiers of the segments of the highway without foot=no in the bounding box – searching in the iD editor for “way:" for each of those values should allow editing each of them.

I hope that’s helpful - someone else may have better ideas, though! I’ve added a map note to ask local mappers about the status of foot=no for other parts of the highway: osm.org/note/5258339

Hi Jennifer - thanks for caring about this!

I found some pedestrian directions from north of the highway to the Mayfair industrial area where the OSRM router doesn’t (at the time of writing) seem to find a path or bridge to cross the highway, and follows the highway:

osm.org/directions?engine=fossgis_osrm_foot&route=49.244%2C-122.80676%3B49.233257%2C-122.818383#map=15/49.23860/-122.81324

Is that a good example of the problem?

I’m wondering if the router suggested the highway because pedestrian-suitable paths are not yet mapped (we could fix that), or whether there is some other reason.

If pedestrian-suitable paths/crossings do exist, then adding those to the map would, I think, be the best way to help routers to suggest routes that use those instead.

Could you share an example or two of problematic pedestrian routing? That should help to determine where possible improvements to the map, and/or the routing software, could fix this.

Regards, James

YairYint95: welcome to OpenStreetMap!

Everybody benefits from good information when traveling and exploring, so thank you for your interest in helping.

When I started, I was scared to contribute map data because I worried about sharing my recent location and journeys.

Last year, I decided that if I am careful about the way I update and edit the map, then the benefit to me and other people should be greater than the risk.

Is there information in OpenStreetMap that you think is wrong? If so, you can verify it and improve it – or you can add a note about it if having a discussion would help.