[Talk-GB] Paths and Footways

[Dudley Ibbett]

Hi Rob

My approach is a pragmatic one.  I've come to the conclusion that it isn't reasonable to expect the "default" OSM website to render the "specialist" features that a UK walker would want.  The "gold standard" for UK walkers has to be the OS 1:25 so you would need contours, the British National Grid, public rights of way etc.    To be honest, even with these additional features we lack the basic data in many parts of the UK to provide the coverage needed for an alternative to the 1:25.  It does however appear that where the data is reasonable we are being used.  The following provides an example of a definite map overlay.   http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/countryside/access/rights_of_way/rights_of_way_network/default.asp#14/53.1728/-1.6869   Presumably this is a vector overlay of the type being referred to and perhaps this could be one way forward.  I guess we could do something like this using the designation tag. 

I believe the UK public right of way access is rather unique in the way it gives access through farmland, farmyards, residential properties etc.   I find it quite bizarre at times that you can end up walking through someone's garden quite legally.  I does potentially provide some unique rendering issues in the UK as a consequence.  

In the field, most walkers will actually use an offline map and wouldn't want to rely on internet access and the OSM website.  I guess OSMand with a suitably rendered UK vector map would be the alternative.

Kind Regards

Dudley





Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 23:25:35 +0100
From: rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com
To: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Paths and Footways

Thanks Andy,

Fully aware of access land, undocumented rights of way and permissive paths. I just need to remember to be careful of what I write on this mailing list (but I was trying not to write an essay).

I'm surprised if this is just England and Wales as I would have thought some other country has some way of documenting paths in a legal context and as such this may be relevant for other countries, but the real question is: "would having some way to show the importance of particular paths/footways (just like roads have a classification) help, and if yes, how should we do this?"

So far there is little interest to do this on the OSM default render style which seems odd to me given how much fuss there has been on this list to recent changes to the footway/path style (over the last year)!

Rob


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