[OSM-talk] [Fwd: Re: Proliferation of path vs. footway]

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/14 Roy Wallace <waldo000000 at gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 8:26 AM, Martin
> Koppenhoefer<dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/8/14 Roy Wallace <waldo000000 at gmail.com>:
>>
>> but this is not real "map"-information but it is legal information you
>> could also get from different sources. If a way is legally a cycleway,
>> all the laws and implications in that county apply automatically.
>
> highway=cycleway (and footway) has inconsistent implications. This is
> the problem, and this occurs even within areas with the same law. I
> think this makes cycleway an inherently bad tag (as currently used).

in Italy (and probably in Germany more or less as well) we use
highway=cycleway if there is a cycleway-sign (blue with white bike).
Other ways are not cycleways, but could get bicycle=yes.

> You suggest we use the wiki to supplement the database - that's fine,

Yes. This is somehow already done by "defining" possible meanings of
the tags. I wrote that legal implications within a certain country
could be documented in the wiki, so it's not necessary to tag them all
explicitly (like motorcar=no, foot=no on cycleways). This is actually
already done, e.g. in the German wiki pages. It's theoretically no
problem to tell in which country a way is,  just by the map data, as
long as we have precise borders (might require some preprocessing
though).

> BUT within the database highway=cycleway must mean the same thing as
> highway=cycleway. That's called consistency. Putting extra stuff in
> the wiki *cannot* give the database consistency.

the problem is, that real world is not consistent across borders. If
you say: all ways that are marked as cycleways (sign or painted on the
street) are to tag as cycleways, this will mean different implicit
access-tags in different countries. I can't see a real problem here
though. It would be nice to have for the main features a
per-country-list the transcripts local legislation in OSM (define
default-presets). Cases not according to those presets would be tagged
explicitly.

> You make the point that we should be entering "real map-information"
> in the database. I agree, and interpret this as meaning the database
> should represent the situation "on the ground" (and not necessarily
> aim to capture also the situation "in the law books" - unless this can
> be done in a separate namespace, e.g. law:*=*, as others have
> suggested).

well, I'm not a pure "on the ground"-guy, I think what ever
information you figure out and could potentially be useful I encourage
to put into the database. But tagging the default law-situation for
every single way seems exaggerated to me - hence we use classification
and xy=designated to describe with one or two tags a series of
implications for ways.

Maybe there is a slight language problem though: many of the tags are
proposed by non-native speakers. I rember the discussion about path on
the German ML and someone said "gewidmet" (I think in Engl.
"dedicated", it is in this context the process of legally assigning a
road class to a way) translates to "designated" and maybe therefore
it's like this now. If you look in a common Engl-German dictionary
you'll find several not congruent translations:
http://dict.leo.org/?lp=ende&from=fx3&search=designated

cheers,
Martin