[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nick Whitelegg]

>>> Whitelegg<Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>> In the UK I would tag such a path as 
foot=designated;bicycle=permissive;
>>>> and pragmatically highway=footway for the moment, using the
>>>> generally-accepted definition of "footway" as "urban surfaced path"
>>>> (though would prefer highway=path; surface=paved)
>>>
>>> That is not the definition of footway. highway=footway is "For
>>> designated footpaths, i.e. mainly/exclusively for pedestrians."
>>
>> that's the recent wiki recommendation, but I guess footway is far
>> older than this definition from Jan 08. Don't know how many footways
>> have been in the  db till then and how many were added afterwards not
>> corresponding to this definition, but might be lots ;-)


>Sure, but perpetuating deprecated definitions via the mailing list
>without specifically indicating them as such (deprecated) is IMHO
>damaging.

My comment on "footway" meaning "urban surfaced path" was based on many 
recent mailing list discussions which seem to indicate that there was a 
tendency to use "footway" for urban paths and "path" for mud/dirt/rock 
paths in the countryside. Based on that perceived tendency, plus my own 
preferences, that's what I've been doing recently.

Nick