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

[Warin]

I tag for the use of the 'path/road/etc'.
If it is for a walker then I tag the width for the walker, usually this 
is the width at ground level but there are ones where the smaller width 
is at hip level (rocks) so I tag the width there.
A width of 0.3 me3ans I have to remove my pack and push it through 
infront of me. If the walk length is more than 3 days I may have to 
remove things from the pack and make 2 trips.

On 23/5/20 2:20 am, Tod Fitch wrote:
>
>> On May 22, 2020, at 5:24 AM, Ture Pålsson via Tagging 
>> <tagging at openstreetmap.org <mailto:tagging at openstreetmap.org>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> 22 maj 2020 kl. 12:52 skrev Daniel Westergren <westis at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:westis at gmail.com>>:
>>>
>>> […] Then there is width, which is only tagged on 3.5% of 
>>> highway=path. I was discussing width of paths in another forum. For 
>>> a forest path, would you say width is measured as the actual tread 
>>> on the ground only? For a runner and MTB cyclist that would make 
>>> sense, but for a hiker with a big backpack a width of 0.3 m may mean 
>>> they think it's not possible to walk there.
>>
>> We need loading_gauge=* tag. :-)
>>
>> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge)
>>
>
> Width is, at least in my area, going to be a hard issue.
>
> For background, I have been volunteering on trail maintenance teams in 
> a near by designated wilderness area where the vegetation is largely 
> chaparral (scrub) and this has shaped my opinion.
>
> Many of our trails were originally ranch access roads (highway=track) 
> and in some short sections here and there where things were scraped to 
> bedrock the trails remains that wide, maybe 3m. However the 
> overwhelming majority of the trail mileage have been overgrown to the 
> point of being impassible on foot without constant maintenance. Our 
> standard for maintaining a section of trail is that the tread (where 
> your foot meets the ground) should be a minimum of 0.5m and that the 
> width at shoulder level should be 2m. In the occasional areas where we 
> have trees, etc., we strive for about 3m vertical clearance so that an 
> equestrian can get through. Being a designated wilderness, no power 
> tools or wheeled vehicles are allowed so access is by hiking and work 
> is performed with hand tools.
>
> If you look to motor vehicle roads, width is of the traveled way, not 
> of the right of way nor of the way cleared of vegetation (i.e. side 
> drainage or shoulders, etc.). From that point of view, a trail width 
> should likely be the tread width. But as noted by Daniel, a hiker with 
> a big pack might be more interested in the width at pack/shoulder 
> level (“loading gauge”).
>
> The issues in mapping trail width in my area include:
>
>  1. Chaparral is fast growing. So that 0.5m/2m width trail we fixed
>     today will shrink each rainy season and without maintenance is
>     likely to become impassible in maybe 5 years time.
>  2. Trail maintenance teams are lucky to be able to clean up 2km of
>     trail in a session. So it takes multiple sessions to keep a
>     typical trail maintained and for any given trail those are
>     sessions occur over a number of years (we target areas where
>     things are worst).
>
> The result is that trail width is highly variable both over the length 
> of a trail and over time. If mapped in high detail, the width you map 
> this hiking season will be wrong next year. Heck, it might even be 
> wrong next month depending on what month of the year your did your survey.
>
> For what it is worth, I don’t usually tag the width of the trails. 
> Mostly for the above reasons: To do it properly I’d have to be taking 
> very detailed field notes and have to re-survey each trail at least 
> once a year. And even if I did that, when I look at the typical data 
> consumer I see that they usually have stale OSM data so any attempt to 
> keep OSM up to the day correct on field conditions wouldn’t be very 
> useful anyway.
>
>
> Cheers!
> Tod
>
>
>
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