[Talk-GB] Permissive paths and "uncrecorded rights of way"

[Robert Whittaker (OSM)]

On 26 April 2012 16:28, cotswolds mapper <osmcotswolds at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's been bothering me for a while that there is a gap in tagging guidelines
> relating to well-used (and possibly long-standing) paths that are not
> official rights of way.  Certainly a newcomer reading the guidelines could
> get the impression that everything is one of RoW, permissive path or
> unknown, and I don't think that is true.

I would suggest that we reserve designation=public_footpath etc for
ways where we have clear evidence that they are officially designated
as one of the four classes of Public Right of Way. There is also
designation=permissive_footpath and designation=permissive_bridleway
(quite a few uses according to taginfo), but I think the idea for
these was to reserve them for routes for ways that are explicitly
signed as such.

For other routes where you believe the access to be permissive there
is access=permissive, foot=permissive, etc. I'd take this to include
routes like your example in 1 which appear to allow access, and while
not being an officially confirmed right of way, even if they would be
very likely to be if someone challenged it. I'm not sure about a
specific tag for situations like this -- not least because it would be
a rather subjective decision as to when to apply it to a way.

For your example 2, do you know that it's not a public highway? You
should be able to check with the County Council, to see if it appears
on their list of streets maintained at the public expense. If it is,
then I'd suggest using designation=unclassified_highway (which has a
few uses according to taginfo) to record this on OSM. If not, it would
be interesting to find out what the Council thinks its status is.
Maybe there's a pending application to have it recorded as a Right of
Way.

In response to a later comment: The "ORPA" label is something invented
by Ordnance Survey for public highways that may not appear as such on
the ground. Unlike the four classes of public right or way, there's no
definitive rule for these -- the label could legitimately be applied
to any public highway. So I wouldn't be surprised if OS haven't been
particularly consistent in when/where to include the symbol. I'd
prefer we avoided "ORPA" in OSM as it looks too much like we're
copying OS, and it may encourage mappers to take the status from OS
maps when they shouldn't. For they few near where I live, I checked
with the Council and found that they were actually public highways.

> Two examples from the area I'm working in (Cotswolds between
> Stroud/Cirencester/Birdlip).
>
> 1) There is a path through a wood I have been using on and off for nearly
> twenty years. It's clearly well used, mainly by dog walkers. There are no
> signs indicating the wood is private, and they are using it as of right. If
> someone tried to close it, I'm pretty sure it could be proved that a right
> of way exists.
>
> 2) In several villages (e.g. Eastcombe) I have found public 'ways' which are
> not official RoWs:
> On OS 1:25k maps (both historic and modern) they are shown as white roads.
> They feel like public rather than private land, with dry stone walls on both
> sides, and no stiles or gates or restrictions.
> 'Proper' rights of way branch off them.
> They are maintained at public expense (parish council workman cuts the grass
> twice a year, and sometimes there's a tarmac strip), and are well used
> (because the roads are narrow with no pavement).
> I would expect them to be ORPAs, but mostly they are not, and I have found
> too many for it to be an OS transcription error.
>
> In both cases, 'permissive' is completely inappropriate because people have
> used these ways as of right for many years, but they are not status unknown.
>
> More generally, I have read that there are thousands of miles of
> 'lost/unrecorded' RoW in... (England? UK? ... can't remember), and OSM
> mappers should be finding some of these. While all sorts of tags are
> possible for the experienced, the novice is likely to restrict themselves to
> wiki options.
>
> At the moment, the wiki reads to me as if 'permissive' is the fall through
> option once you have established that a way is not a RoW.  IMO mappers
> should be discouraged from thinking like that and only record a way as
> 'permissive' if there is clear evidence that it is not used as of right.
> (And also be open to the idea that permissive signs may be wrong, but that's
> for another thread...)
>
> I think there then needs to be a tag (or two) for other ways that are not
> RoW, but not clearly permissive. For my first example, maybe 'traditional'
> or 'informal' would do.
>
> For my second example, which seems to me an obvious example of something
> falling through the crack between the council road's department and RoW
> department, I would be inclined to use 'de facto RoW', because it's hard to
> imagine anyone disputing the use, but there would need to be a high standard
> of evidence on the ground to use that term.
>
> Rob
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-GB mailing list
> Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>



-- 
Robert Whittaker