[Talk-GB] Project Drake - mapping the University of Cambridge

[Robert Whittaker (OSM)]

On 5 December 2011 17:44, David Earl <david at frankieandshadow.com> wrote:
> You may remember the announcement of the University of Cambridge's
> OpenStreetMap project back in July
> I was appointed to the project from that and I have now written up a bit
> about what I'm doing on my OSM diary (
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/davidearl/diary/15398 ), and also
> published the tagging schema I'm working to (
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Cambridge/University_of_Cambridge )
> (which is, of course, a living document which we'll be updating as things
> progress), and which I hope may help others inclined to map parts of the
> University.

One thing that jumped out to me in the diary entry linked above was
the suggestion that all paths/tracks on University land should be
marked access=private. The rationale given is that a "Permissive
Footpath" in UK legal parlance has a specific meaning that doesn't
apply to the paths there. That may be the case, but I don't think that
OSM's access=permissive necessarily corresponds to that strict
meaning.

I've always used access=permissive to indicate that the there's no
guaranteed right of way, but that owner is generally happy for people
to use the route without needing to seek special permission on an
individual basis -- which is my interpolation of what
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Access says for access=permissive
and access=private. That being the case, I'm not convinced that all
the paths through colleges are best tagged by access=private.

I don't know if things have changed now, but my former college
(Pembroke) used to allow free/open access to visitors (during the day,
if not in large groups, and not during exam term). I don't think that
this corresponds to the OSM wiki definition of access=private with
which the paths are currently tagged. While access=permissive may not
be prefect, I think it's the closest OSM access tag for the situation
on the ground there.

Tagging all the ways within the college as access=private also removes
the distinction of which ways are actually marked as private to
visitors. (In Pembroke there were a only a few such paths: one going
to the Master's Lodge, one in the Fellows' Garden, and one along the
back of the Hall / Senior Parlour, and probably some of the access
gates which are generally kept locked.)

While the university may not like the term "permissive" I think it
would be the closest access=* value as far as OSM is concerned, at
least for the colleges that do allow open access to visitors.

Then of course there are the tourist routes in the colleges where you
have to pay to look round. Apart from having to pay for admission,
these routes would also be similar to the routes in colleges that
don't charge. Overall, I think they're closer to access=permissive
than access=private, as there's a standard admission policy of "pay X
to get in", rather than people having to negotiate individual terms
for access. Is there a specific access tag for this sort of situation
already? What do we do for (say) paths in national trust gardens or
theme parks where there's an admission charge? (Maybe access=customer,
though the wiki says that it's use is disputed.)

(Finally, as an aside: for official UK "Permissive Footpaths", I think
using designation=permissive_footpath in addition to *=permissive
would be better tagging. It's got a reasonable amount of usage:
http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/designation#values and using
this tag would make it clear which ways were officially designated as
a "permissive footpath" and which just had generally permissive access
of the sort that I'm suggesting above.)

What do other people think?

-- 
Robert Whittaker