[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Lauri Kytömaa]

Roy Wallace wrote:
>Is tagging the "primary users intended to use the way" verifiable? If
>not, it shouldn't be tagged. If it is, then is footway/cycleway

As fine as it as a guideline, verifiability as a topic and was
introduced into the wiki only in 2009, while footway and cycleway have
been successfully used since ... the beginning.

But anyway, primary intended users are those for whom the way is signed
as being for (cycleway, footway) - convention was to choose the most
demanding mode of transport when it's equally for both, for example
for the combined cycleway and footway. This just wasn't written properly
in the tag documentation until sometime in winter 2007/2008 or
thereabouts.

_When not signed for anyone_ but where local legislation allows cyclists
on such routes, people used local judgement to decide whether the way
was built as being suitable for the common cyclist. Some claim that one
couldn't know what others consider suitable, but I hold the view that
most people can relate to what others think, if they have ever ridden a
bicycle after childhood. The best example I've come up with so far is
that if your mother asked "should I cycle on it" you'd instantly know
the answer (most of the time anyway):
"definitively" (cycleway) or
"you could" (footway + bicycle=yes) or
"no, you shouldn't" (footway)

Sometimes this did lead to ways being later changed to the other 
classification, but likewise some (very few but anyway) roads are changed 
between unclassified/tertiary depending on each user's view of the
interconnecting function of that road - or of width or of legal 
classification.

Alv