[Tagging] Subject: Feature Proposal - RFC - highway=social_path

[John Willis]

Javbw

On Jun 13, 2016, at 8:22 AM, Greg Troxel <gdt at ir.bbn.com> wrote:

>> Highway=trail
> 
> I don't think we need to change path to trail.  It's basically the same thing.

Path=trail
Path:trail=main 

Something, *anything* to separate hiking trails from sidewalks and other footways. It is, in the literal meaning of the word, incomprehensible to me that there is no way to separate sidewalks and hiking routes. 

Here are two hiking paths I was on yesterday. 

https://flic.kr/p/HZt5HK
https://flic.kr/p/HZt6Bi

The "duckiness" of it being a trail compared to a sidewalk or path through a city park is night and day.

> 
>> Subkey: 
>> Trail=main (usually there is some backbone path that all trails branch out from in a large park.) 
>> Trail=official (officially designated trails in a park, where that matters) 
> 
> I agree there should be some tag to show that a trail/path is the main
> one.
> 
> I don't think official/not-official should be related to main/not.

I was thinking like, in a large natural preserve/park, there is a loop path or major point-to-point path that is the busiest/emphasized.

Maybe you are trying to say we should be able to tag both values simultaneously? 

> 
>> Trail=unofficial / social (shortcuts in a park or a city) 
> 
> trail:official=no seems fine for any trail which is not sanctioned by
> the authorities.  (I don't see why you say park or city; anyplace there
> is a notion that some places are official then others can be not.)

If people know this is a shortcut footpath that is not normal (that footpath along a fence that bypasses a longer route on an official sidewalk) then saying it is "informal" or "social" or something would be good. Otherwise it would be =yes. 

>> Trail=illegal (social cuts that exist but are specifically illegal
>> because of posted signage to stay on official trails, or ones that are
>> go into an area signed as "do not enter".
> 
> This feels like osm veering into judgement; that sounds like a simple
> case of access=no.

I think this should only be used sparingly, where it is *explicity* signed - similar to a driveway that says "emergency access only" - it is explicit. 
Many parks have official trails mapped, and where a social trail branches off, they put a sign there that says "do not enter/sensitive area" or similar - that is very very explicit. I agree it is good to know for orienteering to know you have reached that point. If a rendered map chooses to leave them off, okay - but it is good to have the way in the dataset so it isn't added incorrectly in the future. 

~~~~~~

Just as OSM shows motorways down to driveway parking isles and rocky unmaintained tracks with so many different highway values, I am interested in showing - via tags and rendering - the different levels of non-car walking ways, from a wide and leisurely "path" in a city park, a sidewalk along a road, a social trail through the weeds along the top of a river retaining berm, and a signed and maintained hiking trail of various grades and quality in a natural park. 

If we can't go beyond =path and =footpath, we need some kind of subkey value or colon separated value to do it, and not rely on surface or wheelchair accessibility tags to imply it - it should be as explicit as a driveway or a grade3 track. 

Javbw. 
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