My very first attempts at editing with JOSM, some years ago, were adding hiking paths. I followed JOSM's templates, with 'Highways->Ways->Path' appearing to be a natural match, and got `highway=path foot=designated etc.` for the constructed path.
I uploaded the result. Another mapper gave me a (very mild) scolding, changed them all to `footway`, and steered me to the JOSM templates for dedicated footway, dedicated cycleway, bridleway, combined foot/cycleway, and so on. Since then,I've been using those, which causes `highway=path` to appear for any combined foot/cycleway, but causes `highway=footway` to appear for anything from a broad paved path in a city park to a technical wilderness trail. According to Florimond, that's correct. According to Daniel, that's read as an assertion that the technical trail is an urban footway. According to the Wiki, it depends on what page you read and how far you get into the comments. According to the mapped data, it varies considerably according to where you are. (Near me, there's a major cycleway - paved doubletrack - that's 'highway=path bicycle=designated foot=yes'. I walk a few km on it nearly every day.) To a data consumer, it's "oh well, I don't know what it is" and either an optimistic assumption that it's routable or a pessimistic assumption that it isn't. Compounding the issue is that while the `path` preset offered all the 'surface', 'smoothness', 'incline', etc. tags, at the time the `footway` preset was much more limited. It does now; that's been fixed. Well, mostly: `footway` and `cycleway` still don't offer ski, snowmobile, sac_scale, mtb_scale or visibility; those are available only on `path`. So the confusion appears to run deep, with even JOSM's presets running both ways - paths get the option to have the 'back country' options, while cycleway/footway do not, but combined-foot-and-cycleway is a path. I'm now trying to make it a practice to supply `surface` and `smoothness` when I add trails, and `sac_scale` where I think I can scale it without too much controversy. See my earlier message about how I've had southern Germans look at what I'd consider a highly technical (grade 4 on the Yosemite scale) trail, and insist that it's at most 'mountain hiking'. I think they simply refuse to concede that technical trails might exist outside the Alps. I hope that's enough to keep routers from keeping Granny and little kids off the rock scrambles and road bikes off the trials courses. But there are a LOT of highway=footway out there with NO other tags, or just a name. I don't know what a data consumer may safely assume about these, or for that mapper, what minimum set of information that a mapper is expected to provide for the path to be routable. I'm hoping that the minimum doesn't include 'incline'. Some of the trails I map are full of PUD's (Pointless Ups and Downs). I don't want to have to bring a clinometer in order to map them and to split segments anywhere that the gradient changes, particularly since tools like Waymarked Trails are perfectly capable of draping the way over a digital elevation model. So I return to, 'what's the minimalist set of attributes that we can use to guide a data consumer, and conversely, the minimum set of tags that a data consumer needs to recognize?' Specifying every attribute in excruciating detail is fine if you're trying to map your area artistically and say as much as possible; it shouldn't be necessary for a mapper to do so, or for a data consumer to understand everything, in order to get reasonable approximate results. On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 2:21 PM Florimond Berthoux <florimond.berth...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello, > > That's crazy how much people get confused about the triplets > path/footway/cycleway > > highway=path for mixed path > highway=footway for foot path > highway=cycleway for cycle path > Nothing to do with surface, localization, or whatever other properties, just > there main usage. > We should not map multiple feature in one tag. > > The wiki explain it well : > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway > > highway footway : For designated footpaths; i.e., mainly/exclusively for > pedestrians. This includes walking tracks and gravel paths. If bicycles are > allowed as well, you can indicate this by adding a bicycle=yes tag. Should > not be used for paths where the primary or intended usage is unknown. [...] > > highway cycleway : For designated cycleways. Add foot=* only if > default-access-restrictions do not apply > > highway path : A non-specific path. [...] > > > Le mer. 27 mai 2020 à 14:00, Daniel Westergren <wes...@gmail.com> a écrit : >> >> >>> Would it be wrong to set sac_scale=hiking on an urban footway? I’m worried >>> that we’ll get highway=path, foot=designated, cycle=designated, >>> surface=paved, width=2.5, lit=yes, rubbish_bins_every=100m, >>> sac_scale=hiking. >> >> >> Same with mtb:scale. >> >> A footway or cycleway should, in my opinion, never have sac_scale or >> mtb:scale, unless we introduce explicit values like sac_scale=no and >> mtb:scale=no. If it has sac_scale=hiking or above, or mtb:scale=0 or above >> (remember, mtb:scale is based on the Singletrail Scale and even a value of 0 >> should only be used for a singletrail), then it's not a footway or cycleway, >> but a path. And if it has a sac_scale or mtb:scale value, then we should >> already tell by that, that it's not accessible to everyone. >> >> And a path should never get surface=paved, asphalt or similar, because then >> it's not a path, but a footway or cycleway. >> >> But again, with the current use of highway=path it can be and is used for >> anything. That's why depend on subtags (trolltags) and that's what we need >> to get away from. >> >> So yes, if we could separate footway, cycleway and path clearly from each >> other, then we can know that a path is always (if it's used correctly) used >> for unpaved paths that may not be accessible to people of all abilities. >> >> As for "hiking paths", it's also a word that confuses me. I think we're here >> talking about the way (that has certain physical characteristics), not the >> route, however people may use them (anyone can hike on a path, whether it's >> part of a route or not). And if we can't organize paths hierarchically like >> roads, then also context becomes irrelevant when separating footway and >> cycleway from path. >> >> /Daniel >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Tagging mailing list >> Tagging@openstreetmap.org >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > > > > -- > Florimond Berthoux > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
