[OSM-talk-be] Path vs Footpath (sorry for opening the pandora box)

[ghia]

It is a very common mistake by the corresponding literal translation of 
buurtweg/voetweg (chemin/sentier) to /footway.

However the footway of OSM is for paths, mostly paved and in urban 
area's, and designated for people who displace them by foot 
(pedestrians). The path is also marked by a round blue traffic sign 
(https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dfootway [1]). In fact 
it is mostly a displaced sidewalk not at the side of a street.

Paths in the fields or woods are in general never footways!

Regards,

Gerard

On 2021-02-18 10:27, Matthieu Gaillet wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I would like to know if there is some kind of consensus in Belgium 
> regarding the use of <footway> and <path> tags.
> 
> My intuitive interpretation in the following :
> 
> * a footway, generally speaking, is anything that is specifically 
> created for pedestrians in urbanised areas.
> * a path, is generally speaking anything that is not a track (thus not 
> for 4 wheeled vehicles) and not (as well) paved like a footway.
> 
> I know there are other much more loose interpretations that say that a 
> footway might be a non-paved path, but my question is : why would one 
> tag them differently than others ? After all, a path is not suitable 
> for anything else than pedestrian use (except sometimes bikes) ? On the 
> contrary, footways in urbanised places *are* special and it makes sense 
> to map them differently.
> 
> I observe that some mappers are using the footway tags for paths in 
> forests or fields in the middle of nowhere. Those are often "sentiers 
> communaux" (public paths) mapped by balnam affiliates.  Its driving me 
> nuts 😊
> 
> - most of the time this difference in the way those paths are mapped 
> doesn't reflect any physical nor practical reality on the field.
> - this creates vagueness and looseness, I see "normal" paths suddenly 
> showed as "special" on maps without any clear reason.
> - some could argument that the path tag is not detailed enough. That's 
> not true : it can be (and is) combined with a lot of other tags to 
> qualify it from multiple point of views and renderers are already 
> taking care of them. This is *not* the case of the footway which is 
> (logically) kind of monolithic.
> 
> The only exception I see is a path in the country side that is 
> explicitly marked (road signs) as pedestrian only, and/or has 
> turnstiles or other gates to keep other users away.
> 
> Do you generally agree with my way of seeing things ? Is it at least 
> the general way of doing things in Belgium ? Thanks for sharing your 
> thoughts.
> 
> Matthieu
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Links:
------
[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dfootway
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