[Talk-GB] Public Rights of Way - legal vs reality

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 11:54, Adam Snape <adam.c.snape at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd consider this particular proposed use of highway=no to mean "there is a public highway here but there's no visible path on the ground" to be a somewhat country-specific and counter-intuitive tagging practice. It's certainly being suggested here as a solution to a country-specific issue regarding the mapping of England and Wales' rights of way network.

That's not precisely how I've been using highway=no or would advocate
others to use it. I would only use highway=no in the case where there
is a legal right of way that either is not or cannot be used on the
ground. The "is not" might be a case where there is a regularly
ploughed or cropped field and the cross-field path is never
reinstated, so everyone always walks around the edge of the field
instead. (Though if the cross-field line is usually passable, I'd
possibly still use highway=path there.) The "cannot" might be a case
where there's an impassible ditch or a house blocking the legal line
(where higwhay=path would certainly not be appropriate).

I'd be quite happy adding a highway=footway to e.g. a cross-field path
even if there's no physical sign of it on the ground, as long as I'm
confident it will be walked by users of the public footpath.

In terms of how highway=no should be interpreted by data users, I
would say highway=no means no more and no less than "there is not a
(physical) highway here". I think the tagging is needed on objects
(e.g. ways with designation=public_footpath) where you'd normally
expect to find a highway=* tag, in order to distinguish this case from
the case where it hasn't been established whether or what type of
highway is present. (Some people will add rights of way lines to the
map, and omit the highway tag until they've done a ground survey to
determine what is there on the ground.)

The main point I think, is that if you've tagged the definitive line
of a Right of Way, and there's no suitable highway=* type for it, it's
good to add highway=no, to confirm that's the case. This distinguishes
that case from the case where the correct highway=* type still needs
to be determined and added.

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker

-- 
Robert Whittaker