[OSM-talk] highway=cycle&footway

[David Earl]

On 24/03/2009 09:05, Mike Harris wrote:
> The problem - at least as I see it - is not so much with ways that have blue
> cycle signs (round or rectangular) - these are, as you say, pretty clear.
> There is more a problem with the quite widespread use of highway=cycleway
> for a way which is also a footpath / bridleway / vehicular road / farm track
> etc. - this seems to be happening quite often where the way in question
> forms part of a SusTrans designated cycle route (ncn or rcn). I still feel
> that these should be handled as a relation of type=route so that the highway
> tag (which is likely to differ widely along a ncn or rcn) can be used in its
> more standard and wider sense. 

I agree. If it is actually something else, highway=cycleway is 
inappropriate.

But highway=primary doesn't exclude people on foot (except where 
explicity and rarely excluded) so nor should cycleway (by definition) as 
this covers nearly all cases in a simple way and it is how it has been 
done in practice in most places. In the UK, by default cycleway includes 
pedestrians and bridleway includes cycles and pedestrians.

> We should aim to avoid selecting just one
> type of transport for the highway=  tag on a multiuser route to avoid any
> conflict between different types of user/mapper. 

So should highway=primary also have to include separate tags for people 
on foot, on horse, on cycle? Please, let's keep it simple. And there is 
huge amount of current practice.

The fairly recent (to me at
> least) suggestion of the use of designation= tagging is helpful here -
> although there are now, inevitably, a lot of ways with highway=bridleway
> tags (by chance highway=footway does not present the same problem as
> 'footway' is a different word from 'footpath' - although the difference from
> highway=pedestrian is less clear - at least to me).

highway=pedestrian was intended for a street which has been built for or 
converted to pedestrian use - for example, Burleigh Street in Cambridge. 
A footway generally wouldn't be wide enough to get a motor vehicle along 
  and has a different character. Yes, there may be grey areas (a wide 
alleyway), but surely common sense comes into play at some point.


David