[Talk-GB] Paths on Wimbledon Common

[Mike Baggaley]

>I have been doing some tidying based on Osmose, including the warning for highway=footway foot=yes, which is often left over >from a preset in Potlatch 1.
>
>https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/87672607
>
>I got a changeset comment querying the edit.

Hi Andrew,

My understanding is that highway=footway with no access tags has an implied foot=yes. This, however is entirely different from highway=footway + foot=yes which explicitly states that access is allowed. Without the explicit tag, whilst routing will be the same, it could just be that the mapper adding the path did not know whether access was allowed. In my view, if there is a rule check, it should be checking that there IS either a foot= tag or an access=tag and warning if there isn't. For me however, the biggest problem is ways tagged with highway=footway, access=no and foot=yes - this really should be warned about, as without reading the change history and notes it is not possible to determine whether the access=no was intended to indicate that other access than foot is disallowed (which is superfluous) or was added to say the path has been closed, forgetting that foot=yes will override it. The feedback comment mentioned 'designated' - I think foot=designated should ideally only be used in conjunction with the designation= tag, as otherwise you don't know what designation designates the access. There are also lots of ways tagged with values of 'designated' for transport modes where the mapper had an incorrect understanding of what it meant, so without the accompanying designation tag, these values should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Regards,
Mike