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

[Roy Wallace]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de> wrote:
> Roy Wallace wrote:
>> The point I was making was that it should *not* be necessary to
>> *require* "a database of all laws of all countries" to know what
>> highway=cycleway means. There should be one definition that is
>> consistent for the whole world. For example, "this path is marked with
>> a sign with a bicycle symbol on it". If people also want to put in
>> exhaustive information inferred from a law book, I'd prefer they go
>> ahead and use "foot=no + source:foot=lawbook". If people prefer to
>> leave out the inferred information, and instead write routers with
>> country-specific defaults, that's cool, too.
>>
>> But highway=cycleway tags in the OSM database should all mean the same thing.
>
> Do you only suggest that there should be exactly one meaning per tag, or
> would you also want the same tags to be used all over the world?
>
> It makes a difference for possible approaches like using
> highway=Fahrradweg (or DE:cycleway or any other value that isn't exactly
> "cycleway") for German cycleways, as that would still be "one meaning
> per tag".

One meaning per tag is essential. If a German cycleway is *different*
in some important way to a UK (or whatever) cycleway, it should
ultimately be tagged *differently*. I find this obvious.

The details of how they should be tagged are of secondary importance.
To answer your question specifically, I don't have so much of a
problem with highway=fahrradweg, though I doubt that's the best way to
do it. If highway=fahrradweg at least has the same meaning in all
usages, it would be an improvement!