[OSM-talk-be] Cycleway or path?

[Ben Laenen]

Pierre Parmentier wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This kind of tool prepared by Ben may be of a great help.
> 
> For the Sonian Forest I have prepared some guidelines for tagging
> tracks/path/etc., following the idea of Alain Empain. See
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Belgium/Sonian_Forest.
> 
> Should we merge this in "Belgian Roads" in a special part dedicated to our
> forests/woods/parks?

That's something we'll have to tackle as well. Some time ago I've also started 
with some Flemish signs here 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Eimai/Flemish_Nature_Reserves but 
didn't look into properly tagging it (although I do have my ideas on it anyway 
:-) )

Of course it's again something which is handled differently in Flanders, 
Wallonia and Brussels (resulting for example in the different kinds of signage 
in the Sonian Forest).

We may need some tag saying that it's a path which is under the "forest 
decree" (bosdecreet). Because rules are quite different compared with a path 
that isn't. The latter basically allows anything that can go on it, the former 
by default only allows pedestrians (at least in Flanders).

Furthermore, there are other kinds of domains that aren't signed with traffic 
signs or with nature reserve signs. They just might have some information sign 
at the entrance telling in words what's allowed or not. So how do we fit that 
into the tagging rules as well...

That's basically my main concern: how can we get a tagging method in Belgium 
which makes it easy to translate the situation into tags, and make sure that 
the tags themselves aren't ambiguous. If two paths have exactly the same tags, 
it should have the same signage in real world. That last part is necessary 
because rules can change (the Flemish forest decree just changed, the traffic 
code will be rewritten in a year or so, so we have to be able to handle it). 
If your tagging method depended too much on interpreting the situation (i.e. 
explicitly tagging for each vehicle class what's allowed and what isn't) this 
ends in trouble where you basically have to revisit most paths to check the 
actual situation when the rules change.

Ben