[Tagging] Mistagging footways as highway=pedestrian

[Fernando Trebien]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 1:29 PM Janko Mihelić <janjko at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> čet, 28. velj 2019. u 14:15 Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> napisao je:
>
> I agree, but we have a practical problem with people that think that this:
> https://images.mapillary.com/QQXg40ewDRF6hsi0jNGhzA/thumb-2048.jpg
>
> cannot be tagged the same as this:
> https://images.mapillary.com/53iC9URhRKV_gYsxbF4ZYw/thumb-2048.jpg
>
> People look at the first photo as a little street, not as a footway. It also probably has a name xx street.
> Both are really footways, but the resemblance ends there. I think adding footway=alley to the first one would make sense to people, and maybe then they will stop with wrong tagging.

So, if width alone is used as criterion to distinguish between
highway=footway and highway=pedestrian, the second one would be
highway=pedestrian, since it is wide enough and smooth enough for a
vehicle to pass. I agree that tagging it this way would be sort of
incorrect, as it ignores the purpose and function of that way.

Similar to that is the difference between path [1] and track [2]. I've
seen some people argue that the difference is simply width, but the
wiki allows tagging wide ways as path. The actual difference between
them is purpose and function.

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Path_examples
[2] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:tracktype

-- 
Fernando Trebien