[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

Nick Whitelegg Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk
Mon Aug 17 16:38:05 BST 2009


>... but, rightly or wrongly, I do not think I am alone in using
>highway=footway for all paths intended primarily for pedestrians whether
>urban or rural, designated or not, designation=anything - the only real
>exception I make is (mostly) in rural areas where the path is clearly
>informal and of undefined status, where I would use highway=path.

>I arrive at this after a very long recycle of messages earlier on in this
>same discussion group and it is also consistent with
>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/UK_public_rights_of_way .

This was originally my page, I have to admit, but is old, and came about 
before the widespread use of "path". I could change it to my own feelings 
on the matter but given the sensitivity to changing wiki pages on tagging, 
I'm not sure whether I should ;-)

>Please understand that I am not arguing a case here - merely recording 
what
>I currently do and why I do it. Once again it would appear that there are
>inconsistencies both in practice and within the different pages of the 
wiki.
>This is not surprising but it does, understandably, give rise to 
confusion
>and to lengthy discussions (witness the length of this thread).

>How to resolve?

>Mike Harris

Each country (or at least, each country with significant off-road mapping 
being done) could have a group of people with significant experience in 
countryside mapping (thinking walkers and off road cyclists) who could sit 
down (figuratively speaking, more likely communicate over the net) and 
thrash out the requirements of their own country, and come up with a 
catch-all proposal. Then, representatives of each country group could 
compare notes and thrash out an internationally-acceptable proposal.

My own feeling is we need agreement otherwise the renderer rules have to 
get more and more (and more) complex! The recommendation should be just 
that, not a "thou shalt follow or else" rule, but the renderers would then 
follow the recommendation.

Nick








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