[OSM-talk] Path vs footway vs cycleway vs...

[Mike Harris]

This may be too England-oriented to be generally useful but for what it is
worth ...

If the area of grass is a meadow or park over which there exists a large
number of equivalent 'invisible' routes that could physically walked I would
only use an area tag such as 'meadow' or 'park' and add 'path' for visibly
walked routes.

BUT ... and it is a big BUT in England and Wales ... if the area is crossed
by a 'public right of way' (e.g. a 'public footpath') as defined in England
and Wales then I would map the line of this (if known from acceptable
sources) as highway=footway, designation=public_footpath, surface=grass,
etc. whether or not the way was visible on the ground.

My reasoning is (a) that it is useful and perhaps important to record the
line of a way where the public has the legal right to walk and (b) that in
practice many - and in some areas the majority - of public footpaths that
cross pastures / fields / meadows (in particular), parkland (sometimes) and
even arable / cropped land (sometimes) are not visible on the ground (even
though in the case of arable land this is usually an illegal obscuration).
This is so much the case that it applies quite often in my area even to
named long-distance routes and to omit the segments would create unnecessary
and misleading breaks in the continuity of a 'route' relationship.

Just my thoughts for what they are worth ..

Mike Harris
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roy Wallace [mailto:waldo000000 at gmail.com] 
> Sent: 30 November 2009 21:10
> To: Anthony
> Cc: talk at openstreetmap.org; mk at koppenhoefer.com
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Path vs footway vs cycleway vs...
> 
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > What if I map the entire section of grass which is within 
> the right of 
> > way as a polygon with highway=path, area=yes?  That's how 
> we represent 
> > infinite overlapping criss-crossing "invisible-paths", like a 
> > pedestrian mall.
> 
> Not bad. But what makes that area of grass a "path" as 
> opposed to just an area of grass you can walk on (e.g. 
> landuse=meadow or something + foot=yes)? Is there a difference?
> 
> I tend to think "paths" should be limited to elongated areas, 
> designed for or used typically for travel (other than for 
> large vehicles like cars), with usually a constant or slowly 
> varying width. There's probably a better definition though.
> 
> 
>