[OSM-talk] Paths in towns vs Public Footpaths

[Andrew Findlay]

Most UK maps distinguish between Public Footpaths and paths in towns
that are open to the public but are not formally listed. I am
thinking particularly of the sort of paths that connect car-parks to
shopping streets, or that provide pedestrian shortcuts through
housing estates.

At present, OSM tagging does not have a way to make this distinction.
The town paths are usually part of the public highway, so they should
be 'foot=yes' rather than 'foot=permissive'. To add to the fun, there
are sometimes Public Footpaths through towns so the renderer cannot
guess based on surrounding context. Similarly, there are permissive
paths in towns that we may want to distinguish from 'permissive
footpaths' in rural areas: a typical case would be a non-adopted path
through a private housing estate.

	(Note for non-UK readers: most roads and town paths have been
	'adopted' by the highway authority, meaning that they are
	maintained at the public expense. Some roads and paths remain
	in private hands, though there may not be any obvious
	difference between these and the adopted ones.)

I think there could be a case for introducing a new tag, or a new
value for the 'foot', 'horse', 'bicycle' tags to make the
distinction. Here are some ideas:

1)	Use 'public' rather than 'yes' as the value when tagging
	official Public Footpaths and Bridleways. This would give us:

	Public Footpath
		highway=footway
		foot=public

	Town path
		highway=footway
		foot=yes

2)	Add a new tag 'public' to be added to the official paths.
	Its value would be 'yes', and the official designation of the
	path would be placed in the 'ref' tag where possible.
	This would give:

	Public Footpath
		highway=footway
		foot=yes
		public=yes

	Town path
		highway=footway
		foot=yes

In both cases the extension to cycleways and bridleways is obvious.

My own preference is for the second scheme, as it involves the least
disruption to existing tagging.

Neither scheme makes explicit provision for permissive town paths
being different from permissive (rural?) footpaths.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Andrew
-- 
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|                 From Andrew Findlay, Skills 1st Ltd                 |
| Consultant in large-scale systems, networks, and directory services |
|     http://www.skills-1st.co.uk/                +44 1628 782565     |
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