[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Simon]

2009/8/10 Liz <edodd at billiau.net>:
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Nop wrote:
>> - Some mappers are applying footway and cycleway rather indiscriminately
>> to all sorts of ways so it basically only means "not for cars" in some
>> areas
>>
>> In short: It's a mess. :-)
> would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and
> highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by
> path=cycleway
> path=footway
> path=shared
> be logically consistent with the German legal status of cycleways and
> footways?

What does path=shared stand for? Shared between cyclists and
pedestrians, pedestrians and horse riders or all three(as seen in
Belgium, for example)?

As highway=path was introduced to seperate the highway tag from the
access tags and allow tagging of the legal status more clearly(not
just in Germany), why not just use it as intended? This doesn't mean
we have to throw awy everything tagged with
footway/cycleway/bridleway...

-Martin