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  "path": "/user/b-unicycling/diary/409000",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-04T17:50:49.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.openstreetmap.org",
  "tags": [
    "on YouTube",
    "shops with the wheelchair key",
    "steps and ramps",
    "steps and tactile paving",
    "highway=crossing and tactile paving"
  ],
  "textContent": "About three years ago, I had given a talk to some folks at the Irish Wheelchair Association in Kilkenny about the history of Kilkenny. They wanted me to do that again, but I thought that giving the same talk would be boring and asked whether I could talk about mapping accessibility instead. They were open to the idea, so I did that. I thought it would be a good opportunity to tell them about OpenStreetMap, but also to get some input from them about what else we could map.\n\nIn preparation for the talk, I created an “accessibility” preset in StreetComplete with quests all to do with wheelchair and visually impaired mapping, including the `surface` quest, because I figured that would be important for the routing services for wheelchairs. I surveyed quite a bit in Kilkenny city centre to get an idea of what the situation in town is.\n\nI’ve recorded a video with the same slides I used for the talk which you can watch on YouTube (proof-read English and German subtitles available).\n\nAdditional quests for StreetComplete that I came up either by myself or with their help are (They’re also in the video, but it’s handy to have them listed here.):\n\n  * Is this ATM wheelchair accessible?\n  * Is this vending machine accessible?\n  * Is payment in this shop/ restaurant wheelchair accessible? (They said that sometimes the payment terminals are fixed in place too high up on a counter.)\n\n\n\nAfter the talk, one of the facilitators told me about an upcoming audit walk in Kilkenny (on the 24th of July) to assess accessibility. So I got in contact with them to tell them about wheelmap.org and sent them a link to the video, so they don’t audit things I have already surveyed.\n\nI used two overpass-turbo queries in the talk/ video to show some of the data that can be extracted from OSM:\n\n  * shops with the wheelchair key, colour-coded by accessibility (which is similar to wheelmap, but the data can be exported)\n  * steps and ramps, colour-coded by the `ramp` key (yes/ no/ separate/ no data)\n\n\n\nAdditional ones could be:\n\n  * steps and tactile paving\n  * highway=crossing and tactile paving - I might actually use that for quality control, bc the data for Kilkenny could be outdated.\n\n\n\nI’ll add more information here after the audit, if I take part and remember to do so.",
  "title": "Mapping (wheelchair) accessibility"
}