Yeah, the main problem is that a path can be anything and everything can be a path.
I mostly use JOSM and prefer presets to remember to tag all relevant attributes. That means that a combined foot- and cycleway becomes a path... In Sweden, 99% of all cycleways are open to pedestrians and there are few footways where bicycles are forbidden. Thus, almost everything becomes a path.... I was even recommended by one of the most experienced Swedish mappers to use highway=footway for a natural forest path a couple of weeks ago... Which turns the mess the other way, that what really should be a path suddenly can be a footway and then we don't even know how to interpret footways... unless other tags, like surface etc. are used, which in a lot of cases they are not. For those combined urban foot- and cycleways, probably something like highway=footcycleway should have been introduced instead, to reserve path for the cases we're discussing here (which basically implies that it's not necessarily accessible to everyone, even if smoothness, sac_scale, mtb:scale etc. can be used to specify the difficulty/accessibility of the path). Kevin wrote: *It comes down to two basic questions:- What is the minimum set of information that a mapper needs to assert, to have a bicycle or pedestrian router assess that a way is usable by a pedestrian or cyclist of ordinary ability?- What is the minimum set of information that a data consumer needs to take into account when making that assessment? * Great questions! Like others have said, I would love if ALL paved footways, cycleways and combined foot- and cycleways ALWAYS were tagged with something else than path. For that we only have footway and cycleway and when the choice is difficult, the path mess has told us to use path together with foot|bicycle=designated. But like Kevin is implying, that a way is designated for pedestrians and/or bicycles doesn't mean that any walker or bicyclist can use them. Sometimes such a designated way SHOULD be highway=path, while in most cases they should probably not. And when they are not, data consumers need to assume that people of any ability can use it. *Two conclusions from the discussions, as I see it*: - highway=trail or similary would make no difference, as what we seem to be after is to make highway=path mean the same thing. - The main issue is to use a tagging system that is easy for mappers to use and easy for data consumers to interpret. For highway=path|footway|cycleway that is currently definitely not the case. - Accessibility would likely be an important consideration when deciding whether to use path or footway|cycleway|[footcycleway] *Could we perhaps summarize suggestions to something like the following?* 1. Clarify the wiki and editor descriptions to ALWAYS use footway or cycleway for urban, paved foot- and/or cycleways that are accessbile to people of all abilities. The difficulty will be the cases when a way can be used by either. Then we would still depend on subtags to specify that it can actually be used by both pedestrians and cyclists. 2. Clarify the wiki and editor descriptions to NEVER use path for these "urban foot- and/or cycleways", in order for data consumers to never use highway=path for people with disabilities, normal bicycles etc, unless tags like smoothness imply that they are still accessible to most (but probably not all). 3. Possibly introduce a new tag for those cases of combined usage for urban foot- and cycleways (whether paved or with other smooth, prepared surfaces to make them accessible for most), in order to NOT use highway=path (like presets now do) for that. Is introducing a new combined tag worth the effort? If not, how can we point mappers to use existing tags in a way that makes the tagging useful? /Daniel Den ons 27 maj 2020 kl 07:43 skrev Ture Pålsson via Tagging < tagging@openstreetmap.org>: > > 27 maj 2020 kl. 06:54 skrev Yves <yve...@mailbox.org>: > […] > I'm as fool as you, and always mapped the paved, urban-style as > highway=footway and the ones in the wilderness as highway =path. > > > So have I, and so have, as far as I can tell from the areas I am familiar > with, most mappers in Sweden. > > Not all of them, however, and given the current state of the Wiki, I can’t > really say that those others are *wrong*. > > And if I draw a new way in JOSM, and then pick the preset which has the > ”white walkers above white bicycle on a blue background” [1] icon, which is > what I would do as a naïve mapper to map an urban cycleway (most of them > are shared around here, to the annoyance of cyclists and pedestrians > alike), I get highway=path, bicycle=designated, foot=designated. > > So, as I have said before, when rendering a map and faced with a > highway=footway or highway=path I can always make an initial guess about > how to render it, but I have to be prepared to consider at least > *=designated, surface and width as well. > > [1] > https://www.transportstyrelsen.se/sv/vagtrafik/Vagmarken/Pabudsmarken/Pabjuden-gang--och-cykelbana/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging >
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