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

Roy Wallace waldo000000 at gmail.com
Sat Nov 28 23:01:18 GMT 2009


I have a couple of thoughts:

1) Re: connecting paths across small grass areas - don't mark a path
where there isn't one, and especially don't do it for the purpose of
trying to make routers work better. Map reality - that will always
work best in the long term. (just my personal preference)

2) Re: when to use path/footway/cycleway etc. - firstly, I prefer
highway=path because it is more extensible. Any
highway=footway/cycleway/bridleway can be expressed in terms of a
highway=path with additional access tags. In this way, using
highway=path can be more explicit, because of ongoing disagreements in
the definition of footway/cycleway/bridleway.

3) Re: what does <TAG> really mean? - rather than everyone giving
their personal opinion on e.g. what highway=path means, for new users
I would strongly recommend reading the wiki carefully and using that.
I'm sure there are plenty of mappers who read the wiki and nothing
else, and if consistency is the goal, I think the wiki should serve to
document the current consensus as well as current disagreements. Of
course, the wiki needs improving, and I personally think we should
make this a priority. See, for example, some of the latest efforts to
improve the situation:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Consolidation_footway_cycleway_path




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