Just a thought: maybe they are scanning cities for their self-driving cars and are also using this data for Maps?
I think that sounds plausible. I don't see why else they would resume scanning parts of Germany even though they have to blur out large chunks of it on Streetview.
This is extremely likely. We know that Street View cars have been carrying Lidar equipment for a few years now which aids in HD mapping. It makes total sense for them to re-use this data for their self driving cars.
Yes, for now only tiny part of sidewalks has area info. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:area:highway
> I don't think outdoor building stairs are mapped.
It can be mapped, also not done in most of places
A volunteer who likes to bike checks out the locations. There used to be some that were quite off, now it’s really spot on.