[Talk-us] California Coastal Trail

[stevea]

On Sep 6, 2021, at 12:47 PM, Tod Fitch <tod at fitchfamily.org> wrote:
> Looking the the information for this trail system, it looks like it might present some issues for fitting into the OSM schema. “While primarily for pedestrians, the Trail also accommodates a variety of additional user groups, such as bicyclists, wheelchair users, equestrians, and others as opportunities allow.” [1] But looking their map legend [2] in addition to access links, etc. I see distinct markings for “Primary CCT”, “Secondary CCT”, “Beach or Shoreline Route CCT” and “Bike-Only CCT”.
> 
> My first guess is that at least two OSM route relations will be needed: One for the bicycle route and one for the foot/pedestrian/hiking route. They don’t always go over the same ways, in my area they are separated for most of the distance through the town.

Absolutely correct, in fact two routes is likely "only the beginning" (there may be equestrian and even automobile access, for example, by park rangers in patrol trucks at state beaches).  In fact, I've mapped a lot of "overlapping, but not exactly" sorts of routes for multiple modes (hiker, biker, equestrian...) in Santa Cruz County, take a look there with Lonvia's waymarkedtrail.org overlay renderers, and skip through her friendly-looking buttons that toggle the modes (we don't seem to have "inline skating" routes around here...but you never know when they might appear, and thanks, Sarah, for providing a renderer to show these!)

> Focusing on the foot/hiking route, there are still up to three ways that might go through an area: “Primary”, “Secondary” and “Beach or Shoreline”. I am not sure how to handle that. My first cut has been to put the most used way into the OSM route relation (non-scientific, just my observation from my daily exercise along the sections I know best).

Well, I'd say exactly this sort of dialog (here, in talk-us) is a fantastic way to get the ball rolling.  The long-distance Wiki we both noted, in addition to being broken out into sections for each (major) trail, might also have its Talk page become a forum for discussion, too (or only, I don't want to stifle any dialog, and "which, whether or where" between these two — talk-list or Talk page — is a frequent question that usually "figures itself out").

I say you are on the right track, so please keep going.  Refinements and improvements will and do occur over the longer-term.  Journeys of a thousand (miles, kilometers, parsecs...) begin with a single step!

> And I am not sure how to tag the beach/shoreline alternatives for sections that I know are only passable during low tide. Is there a low tide conditional access tagging scheme?

I am unable to answer this, perhaps others can.  Hello, OSM "maritime" geeks?

> For the beach/shoreline sections, I have forgotten where I saw suggestions on how to map a “trail” which can be anywhere along a beach from the time/tide dependent water line up to the edge of any scrub, cliff, etc. My initial searching on the wiki, help forum, mail lists, etc. have come up short. surface=sand seems reasonable but about visibility? The trail is not visible at all, just somewhere between the ocean on one side and the railway tracks/cliff/scrub/seawall/etc on the other. But the only trail visibility tagging [3] I am aware of would probably have either “horrible” or “no” values which call for either advanced or excellent orientational skills. But there is no “orientational skill” needed here, just walk along the beach.

The surface=sand tag is quite specific, though far more common is natural=beach (it renders pleasingly in Carto, though, that's not what drives such decisions), although the former being superimposed upon the latter is perfectly acceptable tagging.  (A polygon tagged natural=beach might instead be surface=pebbles).  I would be curious as to what other "beach trails" do in OSM w.r.t. "high tide line" and so on — sort of beyond my ken, but I could learn the right way to do it if a brief blurb on how to do so were spun up with three lines in a Wiki.

> The more I look at their map and map legend the more questions I have. For example, on the north side of town they show a bicycle only section going on what the city officially designates as a multi-purpose trail. It is designed as a cycleway but is open to, and heavily used by, skaters, walkers, runners, etc. Is it on the CCT map as bicycle only because it looks like a cycleway or was it explicitly not listed as primary CCT because they are planning some alternate way through there for foot traffic (none exists now other than the flooded other than at very low tide beach/shoreline way)?

For "primarily intended for bicycle" trails / paths / infrastructure, I tag bicycle=designated which leaves room for additional tags of foot=yes, horse=yes, inline_skates=yes...to make the trail inclusive to more modes (of travel).  If / as there are separated ways (bicycles ONLY ride HERE...but pedestrians are on THIS section — even if it is separated by only a line of paint) have their own methods of tagging, documented in our Wiki.  It's great if you can get these in accurately at initial data entry, but if not, others can refine the tagging later.  OSM is beautiful like that:  stub in the trail as a rough line segment, barely-tagged-anything, let others build it into a laned, multi-modal chunk of infrastructure full of detail, signs and amenities.  Routes go into OSM in addition to the ways of infrastructure (as elements of the relation), I think you know that.

> Questions, questions, questions. . .

Ask, discuss, extend!  Wonderful!

SteveA