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

[Rik van der Helm]

Thanks for replying sofar.

Shaun McDonald replied:
> Since you are in the Netherlands, you might want to join the  
> Netherlands talk list. The hope is to get consistency of the tagging  
> within each country.

I joined talk-nl already, but as far as I can see this topic isn't an
issue yet in NL. I was thinking of draining your GB experience
first before raising difficult issues in NL. But if you don't
agree on that, I will move to NL shortly.

Andy Allen replied:
> The "designated" refers to their legal status, but in 
> practise this is pretty much impossible to find out with 
> copyright violations from the national mapping agency 
> (the Ordinance Survey). Instead, we use signposts to 
> determine the legal status of a particular route.

So highway=bridleway,highway=cycleway,highway=footway is 
pointing to 'legal way of rights'. This means I can't 
tag footpathes which are not a 'legal way of right' as 
'highway=footway'. My main question now is how should I tag 
footpathes without a 'legal way of right' ? In the 
map_features I only see 'tracks' as possibility. But this 
doesn't feel right for me (see later).

Shaun McDonald replied:
> The difference between a track and a path is more in the 
> surface quality, rather than the width. A path is normally 
> paved, whereas a track is more gravel, or more likely 2 
> dips, where tractor wheels have been, often with grass in 
> the middle.

Maybe you can help me on on this. I was thinking about using 
the 'width' distinction because of the desription of 'track' 
in the map_features "unpaved/unsealed roads for agricultural 
use; gravel roads in the forest etc.". My own visualization of 
'path' is something which is defenitely not a 'road'. My own 
visualization of 'path' is also not something which is by 
definition 'paved'. But I really like to hear if I am biased 
on this, so I can try to adapt myself on a more general view.

Gr, Rik