Why to use highway=footway and footway=sidewalk together?
What is the reason behind the rule that highway=footway and footway=sidewalk tags should be used together? Why not only to use footway=sidewalk? sidewalk=something (and have enough values even for standalone sidewalk etc.) only? I must say the tagging system is not simple at all complicated and often even chaotic.
chaotic. There is even [some evidence][1] this is not working very well.
While I could understand there *may* be valid reasoning behind a more complicated tagging system this in no way makes it easy for new mappers to jump in...
[1]: https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapping-sidewalks/