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

Mon Feb 22 12:53:11 UTC 2021

Originally, the highway-tags comes from the UK. So highway=footpath really
means a small road designated for pedestrians. They are signposted like
that. I'm not really sure, but I think that this classification does not
mean that you cannot ride on it with a bicycle.

The Germans and others didn't like this, as they do not know roads that are
footpaths, so they introduced highway=path.
And then things became very messy. And then the standard renderer started
showing things in the same way.

I think many people say highway=footway and highway=path, foot=designated
(bicycle =no) are synonymous. Surface, nor location play a role.

Some people as HW=footway has to be paved, and in a town, etc., but this
all was added later and is afaik not accepted all over the world. Sidewalks
are not paved in all countries, hence it is not a good idea to require that.

I think there is no general consensus, not in Belgium, not in the rest of
the world on whether once should use path or footway. For me, HW= footway
is just a shortcut for HW=path + foot=designated,bicycle=no.

regards

m.

On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 9:34 AM Francois Gerin <francois.gerin at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm sorry, it's really nice that each one interprets things like he wants,
> but official rules are there to avoid issues, especially in subtle cases
> (like current case, as already mentioned) and to avoid individual
> *interpretations*.
>
> In the meantime, I saw a lot of inconsistencies in the previous exchanges,
> while you definitely did not take into account the elements I shared, which
> are based and, AGAIN, have been confronted to the official rules.
>
> Read again the main definitions
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway#Paths>, they are CLEAR.
> Especially the usage of a path and recommandations.
>
> You don't like the use of footways, that's really sad, but I RESPECT THE
> RULES. A path is NOT to use in the cases I mentioned, like confirmed by the
> usage rules that are OFFICIAL, link here above.
>
>
> Contradictions (non-exhaustive list):
>
>  - You claim it's cheating on rules for rendering purpose. But you
> recognize the rendering is not different between a path and a footway.
>
>  - You rely on a never-ending draft, while official rules have precedence
> and are CLEAR. The draft itself, which has not come to an official rule
> change for years and introduce some confusions (this one, among others),
> which you make use of to torn things in the way you would like things to
> be. But rules are rules and are there for good reasons. When you tell "must
> be understood as", "interpret like" or the likes, you are directly
> demonstrating the lack of understanding of why rules exist.
>
>  - You claim a path must be used, while the official definition of a path,
> and the recommended usage CLEARLY tells it's a footway.
>
>  - You make distinction between roads (secondary vs residential, motorway
> vs secondary) and track vs path, but you cannot make a distinction between
> a path and a footway, which is clearly a bigger/clearer gap, much clearer
> than track vs path, which are often difficult to distinct for on site.
>
>  - You "don't see why", so it does not exist. Go to sites on see! Rules
> are there for good reasons. NOTE: When someone insist on the fact something
> is subtle and complex, rejecting without even considering the case/reason
> is error prone.
>
>
> Particularly sad to see how OSM is turning against itself, like often with
> community projects. After having spent wasted hundreds of hours to clean
> the mess it was in many parts, in RESPECT OF THE RULES even when I didn't
> like them, I come to the conclusion it was just a wast of time. => My
> contributions to OSM stops here.
>
>
>
>
> On 20/02/21 18:24, ghia wrote:
>
> I agree!
>
>
>
>
> There seems at first sight no raison to differentiate the paths and to map
> some as footway, and others as path. I think they should all be mapped as
> path.
>
> If there are some with bicycles allowed, this can be tagged by bicycle yes
> or no.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gerard
>
>
>
> On 2021-02-19 15:06, Matthieu Gaillet wrote:
>
>
> First, I would certainly not break a good work - even if I disagree - like
> you did here for example:
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/50.4822/4.9482. That's clearly a
> work done with precision and evidently the tags are used consistently.
>
> That said,  I'm currently checking / correcting all the uses of the
> footway tag outside urbanised areas in the Haute-Meuse region (from Givet
> to Namur) and in 99,99% of cases, at least from the consistency point of
> view, it was an error of the mapper, mostly influenced by politics (mapper
> that wants to emphasis the pedestrian character of a vicinal path) or
> simply by mistake or ignorance.
>
> Actually I don't really care about the use of the footway tag like you did
> IF and only IF it is consistent all over OSM and that there is a consensus
> about that use. As far as I can see your way of doing things is an isolated
> case.
>
> I really believe that there is a misunderstanding in the definition of the
> *word* itself. Have a look at that query of  google Images
> <https://www.google.com/search?q=footway&client=safari&hl=fr&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl4pmUgfbuAhVMwKQKHXTgDnQQ_AUoAnoECAgQBA&biw=1280&bih=642> on
> the word footway. Even if those footways can be unpaved (clay for example),
> all of the pictures refers to *urbanised places*. The word footway refers
> to "trottoirs" or "voetpad" much more than "sentier" or "pad".
>
> Therefore, with all due respect to your work, I believe that you're wrong
> 😊 It might be considered as mapping for the renderer since default OSM
> maps don't really make the difference between a "normal" path and a path
> tagged as narrow or difficult. But even if your approach could make sense,
> the use of that footway tag is wrong for me. Other renderers are perfectly
> using the trail_difficulty and trail_visibility tags that are made for such
> use.
>
> On the screen capure of opentopomap
> <https://opentopomap.org/#map=16/50.31757/4.82489> below, the green arrow
> shows a "normal" path, where the red one shows a difficult path I mapped
> recently. It works !
>
>
> Again and finally : for the immense majority of the people, a "footway" is
> a *safe place to walk*. Definitively not an alpine path.
>
> Matthieu
>
> On 18 Feb 2021, at 13:32, Francois Gerin <francois.gerin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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 - but that 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
>
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> --
> Met vriendelijke groeten,
> Pieter Vander Vennet
>
> --
> Met vriendelijke groeten,
> Pieter Vander Vennet
>
>
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