[OSM-talk] Rights of way again

Ed Avis eda at waniasset.com
Tue Mar 3 11:20:32 GMT 2009


I am always coming across private roads, which are physically there but not
rights of way, and occasionally footpaths which are rights of way but not
physically passable!  I am surprised that a schema for representing this hasn't
been developed already.

I have seen access=private suggested for the former case.  Although often there
are privately roads which are still accessible to the public, for example the
track past some playing fields to a sports pavilion, or the pavement of London's
South Bank which is privately owned but a public space.

If you wanted to be fully general you would have a table of flags, for example a
bridle path:

          Physical   Designation
Foot      yes        yes
Bicycle   yes        yes
Horse     yes        yes
Motorcar  yes        no

I think this is going too far.  I would be happy with designation=footpath,
designation=bridle_path, and designation=byway to mark ways which look unpaved
physically but are rights of way, and access=private to mark those which look
inviting but are in practice unusable by the public.

The in-between cases of a privately owned space which is open to the public
(like the South Bank) and a road which is not public but not completely
forbidden either (like a drive leading to a country hotel) I would be happy to
leave untagged.

There are also some where you're not quite sure if they are private or not, like
a track between two houses leading to a shared garage area.  I tend to map these
as highway=track, which fairly represents the physical condition of the road and
also gives a hint to the map reader that they might be semi-private.  I don't
feel a burning need for a tag to represent this, especially as IANAL and I don't
know exactly what the access rights are.

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>





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