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

Francois Gerin francois.gerin at gmail.com
Thu Feb 18 12:32:15 UTC 2021 

Hi all,

I faced the same question a while ago. I also realized the lack of 
consensus, but also the good reason for the lack of consensus: the 
problem is not that simple, and there are different points of view, 
sometime very opposite, but also with a good common base.

First, for years I didn't changed the map when already mapped. And I 
mapped "like the area around" to be consistent. But then I became more 
active and started to refresh and map not-yet-covered areas in my 
region. Mainly woods and forest, where less mappers work and because 
there was a clear need.
=> Quickly I realized that it was really important to map 
"appropriately" in such areas. And, just for the confirmation, I 
encountered several times people lost, sometime with babies and bikes in 
quite dangerous areas. (That happened many times in the forest of 
Marche-les-Dames, that a full refreshed recently.)

I ended with this "simple" approach, which is also the best "consensus" 
(for myself) from the different definitions, remarks, wiki pages, and 
compatible with forest use:

- Everything is mostly a path, except if it is a track or a footway.

- A track is where a 4-wheels vehicle, more specifically a forestry 
tractor, can (if traces on the ground) or is used to pass. (Distinction 
made so that a path does not become a track just because a quad can pass!)

- A footway is definitely useful: this is a path too small for horses 
and mountain bikes. (By mountain bikers, I mean "standard people", aka 
end users, not pro mountain bikers who can pass nearly everywhere a 
pedestrian passes!) That definitely correspond to what bikers call 
"singles": a very small track, where two bikes cannot pass side by side.


When I reached that approach, I read again the different points of view, 
remarks, wiki, to conclude that it was respecting quite well most of the 
points considered important. And, for me, it also satisfied the need to 
make that distinction, which is important on site. (cf. lost people, 
dangerous situations)

Note that even if I'm a biker, I force myself to consider OSM for the 
"end user". With the distinction I make for a "standard end user": 
Consider the map like a family getting out for a walk on the Sunday... 
Neither for a pro mountain biker, nor a horse driver. Even if those 
categories probably benefit the most from the distinction.

My 2 cents.

++
François



On 18/02/21 12:49, Pieter Vander Vennet wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Sorry to send a second email just after my first, but while doing some 
> more research, I found that this controversy is already pretty old; see:
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/20333
>
> and
>
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Path_controversy
>
> Kind regards,
> Pieter
>
> On 18.02.21 12:34, Pieter Vander Vennet wrote:
>>
>> Hi Matthieu,
>>
>> Welcome in the swampy fields of tagging discussions ;)
>>
>> *My view*
>>
>> First of all, we do professional routeplanning, for both cyclists and 
>> pedestrians. And yes, I do (mostly) agree with your view: a path is a 
>> small, unpaved (desire) path, e.g. through a forest whereas a footway 
>> is IMHO a typical paved (or planned) road of at least 0.5m wide. A 
>> rule of thumb that I use is that a wheelchair/stroller could pass 
>> easily, or as Gerard said earlier: "it is like a sidewalk, but just 
>> not next to a road"
>>
>> If the "footway" is sufficiently wide that a car /could/ drive over 
>> it (but is not allowed to), I'm inclined to mark them as 
>> /highway=pedestrian/. This is useful information, as e.g. emergency 
>> services might take it during an intervention to get close to the 
>> location of the accident.
>>
>> I'm also inclined to mark a wide, planned way (e.g. in parks) as 
>> footways too.
>>
>> I try to base my road classification mostly on physical aspects: a 
>> path stays a path, even if it suddenly has a name board. This is 
>> because of my view from routeplanning: in general, I assume that that 
>> a footway is accessible to a wheelchair user, whereas a path is not. 
>> To explicitly add the vicinal road status, there are some tags for 
>> that (vicinal_road:ref IIRC?). This is the only place where I 
>> disagree with you:
>>
>> > 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.
>>
>> I would still mark those as a `highway=path`, with an additional 
>> `bicycle=no` and map the turnstiles/kissing gates explicitly. The 
>> data consumer can then decide what to do.
>>
>> Note however that not everyone agrees with my vision and that I'm not 
>> always consistent too - I mapped a very peculiar case 
>> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/107877794> yesterday that by my 
>> objective criteria should be a 'path', but that I mapped as footways 
>> due to their context as that felt more appropriate - butthat place 
>> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/126568080> has given me more 
>> tagging questions too...
>>
>> At last, some people say that "a footway needs a traffic sign to be a 
>> footway" or "a cycle path needs a traffic sign to be a cyclepath". 
>> That is a view I vehemently reject - not every qualitive footway has 
>> a traffic sign nor has every traffic sign a qualitative footway - 
>> although a traffic sign can help in making these decisions.
>>
>> Also abusing `highway=path` for shared infrastructure 
>> cycle/pedestrian infrastructure is something I loathe: it erases a 
>> lot of information and is an effective downgrade of the relevant ways 
>> from a routeplanning perspective, as we have to assume the way is a 
>> desire path (small, unpaved); not accessible to e.g. wheelchairs, 
>> strollers and rollerskate, instead of the very accessible nicely 
>> paved, wide footway. To be able to replicate all the information for 
>> this downgrade, we would need `surface=*`, `width=*`, `smoothness=*` 
>> and maybe even `wheelchair=*` to be sure it is a highly qualitative 
>> footway and quite a bit of tricky and inexact preprocessing. However, 
>> I do not have a perfect solution for the shared footways/cycleways as 
>> well - but marking as path is definitively worse.
>> So, Marc_marc: I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you and some of the 
>> wiki definitions! But that is fine - a disagreement is often due to a 
>> different perspective or some missing information. And OSM won't fail 
>> over a bit of disagreement ;)
>>
>>
>> *Some history*
>>
>> Apart from my vision, it is also important to know that OpenStreetMap 
>> started in the UK, where there are plenty of vicinal roads. I think 
>> those where historically mapped as highway=footway too, but I'm not 
>> sure of that. Furthermore, as Gerard nicely stated earlier, it is a 
>> common translation error.
>>
>> Furhtermore, the iD editor used to "upgrade" tags: a `highway=footway 
>> + bicycle=yes` and `highway=cycleway + foot=yes` got upgraded to 
>> `highway=path; bicycle=yes; foot=yes`.  As the iD editor is widely 
>> used, there are quite some footways downgraded now...
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Pieter
>>
>> On 18.02.21 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
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Talk-be mailing list
>>> Talk-be at openstreetmap.org
>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-be
>> -- 
>> Met vriendelijke groeten,
>> Pieter Vander Vennet
> -- 
> Met vriendelijke groeten,
> Pieter Vander Vennet
>
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