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

[John Willis]

The sac=scale is a attribute of trails. 

Yet we do not explicitly state “this is a trail” 

We should have a path=trail subtag. 

The presence or absence of a sac_scale Tag shouldn’t mean it is a trail. 

Imagine we had no highway=track. That we dumped all tracks into highway=service. That is what we are doing now with trails. 

Would you want to depend on the tracktype=* tag for denoting that it is, in fact, a track? At least track type has “track” in the key name.
If someone didn’t set it, it would map like the parking lots and alleyways in cities. Madness. 

Sac_scale is an arcane attribute for hiking nerds - it is great to have, but shouldn’t be the tag that differentiates a hiking trail from a sidewalk in OSM. That should have been a separate tag from day one, but we are now stuck with the monstrosity that is path=.

At least subkey it. 


Javbw

> On May 24, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Andrew Harvey <andrew.harvey4 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 07:42, John Willis via Tagging <tagging at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>> =path is such a horrible catch-all tag and one that is extremely entrenched - I am surprised no one has implemented a path=trail subtag, similar to sidewalk, so we can separate all the hiking trails and other “hiking” paths, and then apply different hiking limitations you wouldn’t expect to find on a sidewalk or playground way. 
> 
> Right now you can use sac_scale=hiking,mountain_hiking,demanding_mountain_hiking to indicate if a path is a hiking trail. Though you can't really currently say something is not a hiking trail. 
> 
>> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 10:01, Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, May 23, 2020 at 5:42 PM John Willis via Tagging
>> <tagging at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > =path is such a horrible catch-all tag and one that is extremely entrenched - I am surprised no one has implemented a path=trail subtag, similar to sidewalk, so we can separate all the hiking trails and other “hiking” paths, and then apply different hiking limitations you wouldn’t expect to find on a sidewalk or playground way.
>> >
>> > Mixing trails and sidewalks in the path key is as horrible as mixing up runways and train tracks in a “highway=not_car” way.
>> 
>> Yeah. But it's so entrenched that trolltags are probably the only way
>> out of the mess. And sac_scale is _surely_ not the right trolltag! The
>> problem with sac_scale is that it's an impossible scale. I'm told that
>> https://youtu.be/VKsD1qBpVYc?t=533 is still only a 2 out of 6 on that
>> scale, and that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y5_lbQZJwQ is still
>> only a 3. Note that one misstep on either of those trails can easily
>> mean death.
> 
>  https://youtu.be/VKsD1qBpVYc?t=533 I would tag as sac_scale=demanding_mountain_hiking, my rule of thumb is anything where the average person would need to use their hands to get over an obstacle is demanding_mountain_hiking. This is what the wiki says too "exposed sites may be secured with ropes or chains, possible need to use hands for balance".
> 
> Anything that doesn't need hands, but has a fall hazard/is exposed would be sac_scale=mountain_hiking (assuming it's not alpine).
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