<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div>First, I would certainly not break a good work - even if I disagree - like you did here for example: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/50.4822/4.9482" class="">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/50.4822/4.9482</a>. That’s clearly a work done with precision and evidently the tags are used consistently.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That said, I’m currently checking / correcting all the uses of the footway tag outside urbanised areas in the Haute-Meuse region (from Givet to Namur) and in 99,99% of cases, at least from the consistency point of view, it was an error of the mapper, mostly influenced by politics (mapper that wants to emphasis the pedestrian character of a vicinal path) or simply by mistake or ignorance.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Actually I don’t really care about the use of the footway tag like you did IF and only IF it is consistent all over OSM and that there is a consensus about that use. As far as I can see your way of doing things is an isolated case.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I really believe that there is a misunderstanding in the definition of the <u class="">word</u> itself. Have a look at that query of google <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=footway&client=safari&hl=fr&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl4pmUgfbuAhVMwKQKHXTgDnQQ_AUoAnoECAgQBA&biw=1280&bih=642" class="">Images</a> on the word footway. Even if those footways can be unpaved (clay for example), all of the pictures refers to <u class="">urbanised places</u>. The word footway refers to “trottoirs” or “voetpad” much more than “sentier” or “pad”.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Therefore, with all due respect to your work, I believe that you’re wrong 😊 It might be considered as mapping for the renderer since default OSM maps don’t really make the difference between a “normal” path and a path tagged as narrow or difficult. But even if your approach could make sense, the use of that footway tag is wrong for me. Other renderers are perfectly using the trail_difficulty and trail_visibility tags that are made for such use.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">On the screen capure of <a href="https://opentopomap.org/#map=16/50.31757/4.82489" class="">opentopomap</a> below, the green arrow shows a “normal” path, where the red one shows a difficult path I mapped recently. It works !</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="9BE1D962-1BD2-4A8D-AE21-F5ACEB5E6643" src="cid:7957A070-6876-42AB-B995-B5007FF883C7@gaillet.be" class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Again and finally : for the immense majority of the people, a “footway" is a <u class="">safe place to walk</u>. Definitively not an alpine path.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">
<div>Matthieu</div>
</div>
<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 18 Feb 2021, at 13:32, Francois Gerin <<a href="mailto:francois.gerin@gmail.com" class="">francois.gerin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" class="">
<div class=""><p class="">Hi all,</p><p class="">I faced the same question a while ago. I also realized the lack
of consensus, but also the good reason for the lack of consensus:
the problem is not that simple, and there are different points of
view, sometime very opposite, but also with a good common base.</p><p class="">First, for years I didn't changed the map when already mapped.
And I mapped "like the area around" to be consistent. But then I
became more active and started to refresh and map not-yet-covered
areas in my region. Mainly woods and forest, where less mappers
work and because there was a clear need.<br class="">
=> Quickly I realized that it was really important to map
"appropriately" in such areas. And, just for the confirmation, I
encountered several times people lost, sometime with babies and
bikes in quite dangerous areas. (That happened many times in the
forest of Marche-les-Dames, that a full refreshed recently.)<br class="">
</p><p class="">I ended with this "simple" approach, which is also the best
"consensus" (for myself) from the different definitions, remarks,
wiki pages, and compatible with forest use:</p><p class="">- Everything is mostly a path, except if it is a track or a
footway.</p><p class="">- A track is where a 4-wheels vehicle, more specifically a
forestry tractor, can (if traces on the ground) or is used to
pass. (Distinction made so that a path does not become a track
just because a quad can pass!)</p><p class="">- A footway is definitely useful: this is a path too small for
horses and mountain bikes. (By mountain bikers, I mean "standard
people", aka end users, not pro mountain bikers who can pass
nearly everywhere a pedestrian passes!) That definitely correspond
to what bikers call "singles": a very small track, where two bikes
cannot pass side by side.</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class="">When I reached that approach, I read again the different points
of view, remarks, wiki, to conclude that it was respecting quite
well most of the points considered important. And, for me, it also
satisfied the need to make that distinction, which is important on
site. (cf. lost people, dangerous situations)</p><p class="">Note that even if I'm a biker, I force myself to consider OSM for
the "end user". With the distinction I make for a "standard end
user": Consider the map like a family getting out for a walk on
the Sunday... Neither for a pro mountain biker, nor a horse
driver. Even if those categories probably benefit the most from
the distinction.<br class="">
</p><p class="">My 2 cents.</p><p class="">++<br class="">
François<br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 18/02/21 12:49, Pieter Vander Vennet
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:0398f3ce-bf7e-cdcd-f579-2e5c6f0b831d@posteo.net" class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" class=""><p class="">Hi everyone,<br class="">
<br class="">
Sorry to send a second email just after my first, but while
doing some more research, I found that this controversy is
already pretty old; see:<br class="">
</p><p class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/20333" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/20333</a></p><p class="">and <br class="">
</p><p class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Path_controversy" moz-do-not-send="true">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Path_controversy</a><br class="">
<br class="">
Kind regards,<br class="">
Pieter<br class="">
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 18.02.21 12:34, Pieter Vander
Vennet wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:e1a08e87-41f2-4d92-8d59-2f4d173ca4f8@posteo.net" class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8" class=""><p class="">Hi Matthieu,</p><p class="">Welcome in the swampy fields of tagging discussions ;)<br class="">
<br class="">
<b class="">My view</b><br class="">
</p><p class="">First of all, we do professional routeplanning, for both
cyclists and pedestrians. And yes, I do (mostly) agree with
your view: a path is a small, unpaved (desire) path, e.g.
through a forest whereas a footway is IMHO a typical paved (or
planned) road of at least 0.5m wide. A rule of thumb that I
use is that a wheelchair/stroller could pass easily, or as
Gerard said earlier: "it is like a sidewalk, but just not next
to a road"<br class="">
</p><p class="">If the "footway" is sufficiently wide that a car <i class="">could</i>
drive over it (but is not allowed to), I'm inclined to mark
them as <i class="">highway=pedestrian</i>. This is useful
information, as e.g. emergency services might take it during
an intervention to get close to the location of the accident.</p><p class="">I'm also inclined to mark a wide, planned way (e.g. in parks)
as footways too.<br class="">
<br class="">
I try to base my road classification mostly on physical
aspects: a path stays a path, even if it suddenly has a name
board. This is because of my view from routeplanning: in
general, I assume that that a footway is accessible to a
wheelchair user, whereas a path is not. To explicitly add the
vicinal road status, there are some tags for that
(vicinal_road:ref IIRC?). This is the only place where I
disagree with you:<br class="">
</p>
<div class="">> The only exception I see is a path in the
country side that is explicitly marked (road signs) as
pedestrian only, and/or has turnstiles or other gates to keep
other users away.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I would still mark those as a `highway=path`, with
an additional `bicycle=no` and map the turnstiles/kissing
gates explicitly. The data consumer can then decide what to
do.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Note however that not everyone agrees with my
vision and that I'm not always consistent too - I mapped a <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/107877794" class="">very
peculiar case</a> yesterday that by my objective criteria
should be a 'path', but that I mapped as footways due to their
context as that felt more appropriate - but<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/126568080" class=""> that
place</a> has given me more tagging questions too...<br class="">
<br class="">
At last, some people say that "a footway needs a traffic sign
to be a footway" or "a cycle path needs a traffic sign to be a
cyclepath". That is a view I vehemently reject - not every
qualitive footway has a traffic sign nor has every traffic
sign a qualitative footway - although a traffic sign can help
in making these decisions.<br class="">
<br class="">
Also abusing `highway=path` for shared infrastructure
cycle/pedestrian infrastructure is something I loathe: it
erases a lot of information and is an effective downgrade of
the relevant ways from a routeplanning perspective, as we have
to assume the way is a desire path (small, unpaved); not
accessible to e.g. wheelchairs, strollers and rollerskate,
instead of the very accessible nicely paved, wide footway. To
be able to replicate all the information for this downgrade,
we would need `surface=*`, `width=*`, `smoothness=*` and maybe
even `wheelchair=*` to be sure it is a highly qualitative
footway and quite a bit of tricky and inexact preprocessing.
However, I do not have a perfect solution for the shared
footways/cycleways as well - but marking as path is
definitively worse.<br class="">
So, Marc_marc: I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you and some
of the wiki definitions! But that is fine - a disagreement is
often due to a different perspective or some missing
information. And OSM won't fail over a bit of disagreement ;)<br class="">
</div><p class=""> <br class="">
<b class="">Some history</b></p><p class="">Apart from my vision, it is also important to know that
OpenStreetMap started in the UK, where there are plenty of
vicinal roads. I think those where historically mapped as
highway=footway too, but I'm not sure of that. Furthermore, as
Gerard nicely stated earlier, it is a common translation
error.<br class="">
</p><p class="">Furhtermore, the iD editor used to "upgrade" tags: a
`highway=footway + bicycle=yes` and `highway=cycleway +
foot=yes` got upgraded to `highway=path; bicycle=yes;
foot=yes`. As the iD editor is widely used, there are quite
some footways downgraded now...<br class="">
</p><p class="">Kind regards,<br class="">
Pieter<br class="">
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 18.02.21 10:27, Matthieu Gaillet
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:308670D7-1550-4E81-A0CB-BD711870AA29@gaillet.be" class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8" class="">
Hi,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I would like to know if there is some kind of
consensus in Belgium regarding the use of <footway>
and <path> tags.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">My intuitive interpretation in the following : </div>
<div class="">
<ul class="">
<li class="">a footway, generally speaking, is anything
that is specifically created for pedestrians in
urbanised areas.</li>
<li class="">a path, is generally speaking anything that
is not a track (thus not for 4 wheeled vehicles) and not
(as well) paved like a footway.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="">I know there are other much more loose
interpretations that say that a footway might be a non-paved
path, but my question is : why would one tag them
differently than others ? After all, a path is not suitable
for anything else than pedestrian use (except sometimes
bikes) ? On the contrary, footways in urbanised places *are*
special and it makes sense to map them differently.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I observe that some mappers are using the
footway tags for paths in forests or fields in the middle of
nowhere. Those are often “sentiers communaux” (public paths)
mapped by balnam affiliates. Its driving me nuts 😊 </div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">- most of the time this difference in the way
those paths are mapped doesn’t reflect any physical nor
practical reality on the field. </div>
<div class="">- this creates vagueness and looseness, I see
“normal” paths suddenly showed as “special” on maps without
any clear reason. </div>
<div class="">- some could argument that the path tag is not
detailed enough. That’s not true : it can be (and is)
combined with a lot of other tags to qualify it from
multiple point of views and renderers are already taking
care of them. This is *not* the case of the footway which is
(logically) kind of monolithic.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The only exception I see is a path in the
country side that is explicitly marked (road signs) as
pedestrian only, and/or has turnstiles or other gates to
keep other users away.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Do you generally agree with my way of seeing
things ? Is it at least the general way of doing things in
Belgium ? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">Matthieu</div>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
<br class="">
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Met vriendelijke groeten,
Pieter Vander Vennet</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Met vriendelijke groeten,
Pieter Vander Vennet</pre>
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