[OSM-talk] Paths in towns vs Public Footpaths

[Andy Robinson]

Andrew,

I believe you are on the right track here. The next version of
Map_Features will split the physical properties of the way from its
ownership and designation properties.

Cheers

Andy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org 
> [mailto:talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Findlay
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 10:30 AM
> To: talk at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: [OSM-talk] Paths in towns vs Public Footpaths
> 
> 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
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
> |                 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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