[Talk-GB] Fwd: designated cycleway, designated bridleway, designated footway

[Rik van der Helm]

hmm, my former postings doesn't still show up in the list. Is this list
moderated ?

> I am a new member of OSM. I am a walker and planning to map footpathes
> in NL for OSM. Before I do that I want to investigate the tags I need to
> gather. I will put the results of my investigation on the dutch wiki.
> For now I have a question about the descriptions ofbridleway, cycleway,
> footway in the map_features, "designated XXXway". Sofar I can't find a
> proper translation for it in dutch. I think 'designated' means there are
> proper signs along the way which indicate that it is a 'XXXway' ? Maybe
> someone can point me in the right
> direction.

Found the page about public right of ways
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/UK_public_rights_of_way
In which I found extended descriptions which support my own thoughts on
the topic. But it also rise new questions. I see extra recommended tags
on the 'permissiveness' of ways, like foot=yes. I don't find these kind
of tags in the map features
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Map_Features
How 'formal' are these tags in the OSM community ?

As far as I can see now the unpaved path- en roadnetwork in the
Netherlands is slightly different from UK. In our country there is no
clear distinction between public and private roads and pathes. Allthough
in historic registers there are lots of public pathes, only very little
are designated as such in the field, and even then I often doubt the
right use of the public signs, which are the same as for pedestrian
roads in urban areas. On the other hand we do have a growing network of
national,regional and local pathes which are the result of diffuse
processes in our wellknown poldermodel and use both public and private
pathes/roads. My opinion is that it's not very usefull to extinquish
between 'free' or 'permissive' in the Netherlands.

As far as I understand our law, all pathes/roads which don't have 'no
entrance' signs or barriers, are permissive. But pathes without a route
on it are not walked very often and I know from experience that
landowners don't like and expect people to use them. There is a serious
risk on aggresive encounters for ignorant walkers. As soon as the owner
places signs/barriers the roads are legally closed anyway. So formally
you could tag those pathes "foot=permissive", but I would propose to tag
them  as "foot=unknown".

While writing this I realize that in our country 'rights of way' are in
fact established by the realization of routes and are made clear by
waymarks in all kinds and colors. Only the national and part of the
regional pathes are uniformely marked (red/white,red/yellow). Also the
permissiveness for different usergroups
(walkers,cyclers,horseriders,...) is not very easy to extinquish. In
fact there is a small war going on in the countryside in which the
different groups claim there priviliged way of right on pathes.

My temporary conclussions are
- no distinquish between public/private (free/permissive)
- routesigns prove permissiveness, but not for which usergroups
- permissiveness for certain groups becomes clear from different kinds
of signs and (sometimes) waymarks
- lots of pathes/roads without proves of permisiveness.

I am thinking about the next descission tree.

Is it a track (broader then 1.5m) or a path:
	track: highway=track
	path: highway=path

Is it one of those:
- track/path along/on a public road
- routemarked
- track/path in a park,wood,estate which is clearly stated 'open'
- track/pathes along waterways, on dikes which are clearly stated 'open'
	No: foot=unknown,cycle=unknown,horse=unknown,....=unknown
	Yes: The path/road is permissive. Two possibilities
	- there is no information about which groups have permisiveness: foot=permissive rest=unknown
	- there are signs which point to permissiveness of certain groups: groupX=permissive rest=unknown

I am sorry this posting became longer then I intended too. But I needed
it to get the grey mass to turn around ;)

Hope to hear your thougts on this. Will start this topic also in the
NL-group, but sofar think there are more countrymappers around here.

Greetings, Rik