[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Mike Harris]

... That is current practice - there is no implication of exclusivity only
that a legal right of use exists for a class of users. A restricted byway in
England and Wales is for example, foot=designated, horse=designated,
bicycle=designated (as there are legal rights for all non-motorised
traffic); it is also motorcar=no, motorcycle=no; the condition can be
described with either a surface= or a tracktype= tag. It should be signed
(and mostly is at the moment at each end as it is a very new legal category
and the signs have yet to be wrecked) but I wouldn't bother to add signed=
as it does not give the user much in the way of additional information once
they know it is a restricted byway.

The question that is currently the main subject of debate in this thread
seems to be the primary one as to the type of highway. Should it be
highway=restricted_byway, highway=byway, highway=track, highway=path ... I
would currently use the first of these as being the most specific (and, yes,
it is documented on the wiki) - but I appreciate that there are ambiguities
that are being discussed in the thread.

Mike Harris

-----Original Message-----
From: Roy Wallace [mailto:waldo000000 at gmail.com] 
Sent: 13 August 2009 23:54
To: Nop
Cc: talk
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Nop<ekkehart at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Clarification: What I meant is: Designated only for ways legally 
> dedicated to one mode of travel. Usually that means individually 
> road-signed, but it could also be done for a whole area like a nature 
> reserve with a declaration for all ways inside. You could also say: 
> Designated means designated by the government.

I would prefer that "designated" does not infer "exclusively designated", so
that it's possible to have bicycle=designated as well as foot=designated on
a shared pathway (signed with a picture of a person and a picture of a
bicycle).

Designated != Dedicated