[OSM-talk] Deprecation/move of incorrect tags

[Matthias Julius]

"Andy Allan" <gravitystorm at gmail.com> writes:

> On 7/17/07, Alex L. Mauer <hawke at hawkesnest.net> wrote:
>
>> OK, and what about a generic thing-that-is-not-a-road (i.e. path or
>> trail)?  My point is that there *is no way to tag that* currently,
>
> highway = footway? highway=track?
>
> I don't understand what linear-feature-for-travelling you can't
> currently tag *at all* with one of the "highway" list. Maybe you have
> a specific example, and you could provide a full description and/or
> photos.

It is probably true that the naming and descriptions for some highway
features are a bit UK centric.  Maybe they should be more
generalized.  The word "highway" also might not be the best choice.
At least it irritated me somewhat at the beginning.  But I got used to
it and I am perfectly fine with having all physical roads, paths,
trails, whatever under one key.

To deal with the problem of a path exclusively for skiers we probably
should have a highway=skiway (to be consistant with the other ways).
Better might be a more generic and more flexible highway=trail,
ski=yes.

highway=trail could mean any trail, path, whatever that is not a road
and does not fit the description for any other highway tag.

Matthias