[talk-au] Undiscussed edits to Australian Tagging Guidelines on tagging footpaths/cycleways (Was: Discussion D: mapping ACT for cyclists – complying with ACT law)

[Andy Townsend]

On 04/10/2019 12:46, Andrew Davidson wrote:
>
> I think at one point footway was assumed to be paved and path unpaved.

I think that it's actually a bit more complicated than that.  The 
"standard" style on OpenStreetMap.org changed to displaying footway and 
path the same because it was clear that communities around the world had 
different views on what each one meant - some used footway for urban 
paved paths and path for rural unpaved ones, and some vice versa.  This 
discussion from about 4 years ago:

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/1698#issuecomment-134914770

(read both above and below that comment) covers it fairly well.

Going back to the dawn of OSM, "path" wasn't one of the original 
"highway" types.  When OSM was started in the UK, the 
"footway/bridleway/cycleway" split was based on what we typically saw 
paths "mostly used for".  It'd be an odd bridleway or cycleway here that 
didn't allow pedestrians to also use it, so the "mostly used for" idea 
made sense.

In places like Germany, however, dedicated infrastructure is more 
common, and there are usually signs telling you exactly what you are 
allowed to do.  As I understand it (and this was before my time, so this 
is largely hearsay) "cycleway" and "footway" got used by the local 
community for the dedicated infrastructure there, leaving a problem of 
what to tag what we in the UK would now call "shared-use" or "multi-use" 
paths, and the likes of https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/24377739 in 
Perth would also fit too.  "highway=path" (with the numerous subtags 
also needed) got invented for this use, and the 1-liner descriptions you 
see at e.g. https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/highway#values 
reflect this use

However, the adoption worldwide was often for rural unpaved paths (which 
based on the meaning of the original English words would make sense) but 
not always - and it was because OSM Carto is a style that has to work 
everywhere that the decision that I linked to at the top of this message 
was made.  That doesn't mean that communities don't still think that 
"footway" and "path" have other slightly different meanings and map them 
to their legal code and custom and practice in different ways, and have 
a set of "$country tagging guidelines" to reflect that.

Usage varies too - compare e.g. 
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.in/keys/highway#values , 
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.fr/keys/highway#values and 
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org.uk/keys/highway#values .  France and 
the UK aren't that different, but the frequency of usage of footway vs 
path is very different.

Best Regards,

Andy

PS:  For the avoidance of doubt I'm absolutely not trying to influence 
what goes into the "Australian Tagging Guidelines" here - just trying to 
fill in a bit of history!