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

Steve Bennett stevagewp at gmail.com
Sat Nov 28 13:37:12 GMT 2009


On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 12:14 AM, Richard Fairhurst
<richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> highway=footway -> a path intended for pedestrian use
> highway=cycleway -> a path intended for pedestrian and cycle use
> highway=bridleway -> a path intended for pedestrian and horse use[1]

Boy, I like this way of thinking. Of course, it must be controversial
given the preceding comments, but it does make a lot of sense.

Not really sure what a bridleway is in practice, but we do have rail
trails that allow all three modes, and a couple of long distance
trails that allow all three, but are really best suited to horses (too
far between camps for walkers, too rough for cyclists).

>* "access" tags such as foot or bicycle. (So highway=cycleway, foot=no
would cover the rare case of a cycleway from which pedestrians are banned.)

I've used this a few times. It crops up in my area where there are two
distinct paths, one for bikes and one for pedestrians, and they follow
slightly different routes. (See the Bay Trail between St Kilda and
Elwood, Victoria, Australia for example...)

To expand on the semantics of what you posted:

highway=footway -> purpose built path for pedestrians
highway=cycleway -> purpose built path for pedestrians and/or
cyclists, with all the characteristics of a bike path (no steps, no
kerbs, width >1m), no restrictions against bikes

Agree? Then we can keep it totally empirical and objective, without
worrying about whether the thing is labelled "xxx bike path" or was
intended for that purpose. In particular, I'm thinking of lots of
paths that were built with pedestrians in mind, before the cycling
revolution came along...

>highway=cycleway doesn't mean cycles have priority. It just means it's intended for pedestrian and cycle use. There's no suggestion of primacy for either.

Cool. So again, "cycleway" is a statement of the quality and
attributes of the path, rather than implying any design decisions,
rules, usage etc.

Next question: how popular is this viewpoint? Is this a minority way
of thinking?

Steve




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