[Tagging] Reviving the path discussion - the increasing, importance of trails in OSM

[Volker Schmidt]

On Tue, 2 Jun 2020 at 09:04, Daniel Westergren <westis at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think the reason that this is so messed up because of the desire to tag
>> according to function.   A trail/path can have many users/functions, but
>> it's still a dirt path.
>>
>
> Right. But is there another way? Can we tag dirt paths/wilderness
> paths/forest paths/mountain paths with another main tag?
>
No you cannot inroduce another main tag, because of the existing stock of
"path" 8.7 million and "track".(18.7 million). This would only add
additional confusion with mappers and an enormous burden on renderers and
routers

> Can we somehow "enforce" additional tags for physical characteristics that
> will tell what this path|footway|cycleway actually looks like?
>
We have no way to "enforce" anything in OSM. But, as we do have the
necessary tags (maybe to many different ones, but they all are in use.and
we need to reamin backaward compatible in view of the enourmous numbers).
What we can do and need to do is to improve the description of the various
existing tagging options in the wiki (without touching their definition)

Don't forget dirt bikes & ATV's (<50 inchs, 127 cm) in this assessment.
>> Many trails are open to, and used by, everyone including motor vehicles.
>> Perhaps this just means that footway & cycleway are non-motorized, and path
>> could be.
>>
> We do have a more or less agreed set of default access restrictions tables
<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access_restrictions>.
We cannot retrospectively change them.. For most countries this sets the
default access for "path" to foot|bicycle|horse (in the US also "moped").
Again these default values have been there for a while, hence many millions
of paths and tracks are tagged on that base.

One thing you can do for future tagging is to convince the JOSM and iD
people to create more specific presets (say an ATV preset which would check
that there is a width tag on the path with a value of at least 127cm, and
also set the access to motor_vehicle=yes (I don't know if we do already
have an ATV vehicle category)

>
> Yeah, something like "and possibly smaller motor vehicles" should be
> added. In Sweden, for example, cycleways are normally open for smaller
> mopeds. "...primarily intended for non-motorized vehicles and possibly
> smaller motor vehicles".
>
Tere is so far no table on the above wiki page for Sweden. If moped=yes
that is the default situation on cycleways in Sweden, it would be good idea
to add a new table for <Sweden with that detail.

The sermon that keeps getting repeated is don't tag for the renderer.   We
>> shouldn't tag for a lousy renderer, but we should tag for the user &
>> sometimes the rules laid down are wrong.
>>
> We do not have laid down rules, and we cannot create any. The wiki
documents what mappers do,
I would say we should not define things that make life even more complex to
people who design renderers and routers, to mappers, and , last but not
least keep the end user in mind.

>
>> I'm OK with taking this off this list & I can add my comments to the
>> google docs doc.
>>
>
> Ok, I'll email those who have expressed interest in following or
> participating in the discussion. Suggestions and comments can also be done
> in the Google Doc.
>

As said before I would prefer that his discussion remain on one of the
tools of the OSM community, mainly for documenting the discussion.

Volker

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