[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nick Whitelegg]

I'll say what I always say these days whenever this subject comes up :-) 

That is, I believe the "highway" tag should represent the physical 
surface, not the rights. My current views on this are:

highway=track - a dirt/stone track, theoretically usable for off road 
vehicles (though not necessarily any legal right)
highway=path - a narrow path, typically with mud/stone surface
highway=path; surface=paved - a concrete path typically used in urban 
areas, what most people are using "footway" for

Then, the actual rights should be defines using foot, horse, etc. foot=yes 
has more or less become unusable, as different people mean different 
things, so therefore foot should be no, private, permissive (use granted 
by landowner) or designated (a legal right, such as a UK public footpath, 
or - though my knowledge of German or Swiss law on rights of way is not 
good - waymarked paths in Germany or Switzerland such as the "yellow 
diamond" routes in the Schwarzwald or the red/white waymarked mountain 
paths in Switzerland).

As an alternative to foot/horse etc one could use the "designation" tag 
such as designation=public_footpath or public_bridleway, 
designation=cycleway for an official cycleway, or (at a guess for 
Switzerland, I may be wrong)  "gelb", "rot/weiss" and "blau/weiss" for the 
different types of path with different difficulties.

Things like highway=bridleway or cycleway I would prefer to see 
deprecated, and replaced by path/track with surface/bicycle/horse tags, 
though I still tag with them as that is the generally-accepted way of 
tagging bridleways and cycleways.

Nick