[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nick Whitelegg]

On Fri, 2009-08-14 at 13:08 +0200, Nick Whitelegg wrote:
>> [In Norway you can legally cycle on footways; in England you can't]
>> 
>> Using the "designated" value appropriately would work with both. In 
>> England, tag with highway=path (or track); foot=designated. In Norway, 
tag 
>> with highway=path (or track); foot=designated; bicycle=designated.

>This doesn't sound quite right to me. If it is signed as a footway in
>Norway (picture of a pedestrian only, no bike [1]), it is sometimes
>allowed to cycle there, but only if there are not too many pedestrians
>and only at walking speed. 

Sorry, my comment was based on someone saying that in Norway, bikes could 
use footpaths, and me assuming it was a full legal right. This does make 
things a bit more difficult as I have not come across these sorts of "in 
between" rights before. However I'm not sure that "highway=footway" is the 
answer. Someone should ideally not need knowledge of local laws: as 
someone from the UK I can instantly tell that I'm not supposed to walk on 
German bridleways (see another message) if they are tagged with the 
generic, international tags of foot=no; horse=designated; bicycle=no. 
Likewise someone from Germany, say, can instantly tell that they can walk, 
or cycle, on a UK bridleway. If German bridleways were simply 
"highway=bridleway" I'd assume, wrongly, German bridleways had the same 
rights as English.

Some way does evidently need to be found to address these country specific 
laws though (this example and the "Fahrrad frei" example in Germany). 
Maybe country specific values for that mode of transport? "highway=path; 
foot=designated; bicycle=no:[some way of describing the Norwegian laws]" ? 
Someone seeing this can tell that the path has specific Norwegian laws 
applied to it regarding bicycle access, and can look up if necessary.


>Since I'm entering into this never ending discussion on 'path' vs
>'*way', I'll also add my main gripe about the 'path' tag: It doesn't
>contain any information in itself, and therefore it is superfluous. I
>don't see how using two tags (highway=path, foot=designated) is better
>than using one single tag (highway=footway) which has the same
>information content.

Because it allows you to separate the physical condition of the path from 
the rights. Some people might be interested in one; others in another; and 
still others in both. All paths have a range of attributes and it seems to 
be better to include as many attributes as possible as it leads to a 
clearer and less ambiguous description of the path.

Nick