Hi I think I may have started this thread - and received some really good and helpful comments, for which my thanks. My interest arose because I am currently adding as many as possible of the public rights of way and other footpaths in west and mid-Cheshire on the basis of a seven year (and still growing) stash of time-stamped gps tracks from my walking endeavours. Stiles, gates, kissing gates, etc. are of course quite important to walkers - especially to less able walkers - when assessing a possible route.
>From a technical (English public rights of way law) point of view, a stile is as much an obstruction as a gate or a fence when on a public right of way - only a gap is not an obstruction. Stiles etc. need to be specified and allowed by the highway authority; those that are not specified are illegal obstructions; those that are specified have to be maintained. So ... I would say that a stile is a barrier (in law - and for differently abled walkers in practice - not easy to get a wheel chair over a stile or even an arthritic hip!). >From an OSM standpoint, I use barrier=stile as what I believe to be the now preferred tag - but, perhaps improperly, also tag with highway=stile for the sake of osmarender which does not yet render the barrier= tag. I do not regard this as "tagging for the renderers" as highway=stile is not an incorrect tag (and there is a large number of highway=stile tags already out there - I need to check, but probably more than there are for barrier=stile) just not the preferred tag. In the light of the various responses and from my reading of (English) footpath law I would suggest that the present system of tagging used in OSM is about right (see also the post today re cyclemap rendering): Public rights of way: If a way is a public right of way in law (and is not a vehicular highway) then it is tagged, as per wiki: highway=footway and foot=yes for public footpaths; highway=bridleway and foot=yes plus horse=yes plus bicycle=yes for public bridleways (bicycle=no for the few public bridleways where local regulations reverse the default assumption of 'yes'); highway=byway and foot=yes plus horse=yes plus bicycle=yes plus motor=no for restricted byways (i.e. RBs) and 'byways open to all traffic' (i.e. BOATs) - noting that 'roads used as public path' (RUPPs) no longer exist (the OS will eventually catch up!) and that RBs are closed to motorise traffic of all kinds; I also add tracktype=gradex tag where I feel this information is important; this results in osmarendering even a highway=footway as a track - which seems sensible. I also add a ref= tag for public right of way numbers where these are known from a copyright-free source. Likewise, for the few cases where the way is actually named, I use a name= tag. Where a public footpath etc. is coincident with a vehicular highway I add only the ref=[footpath number] tag to the normal highway tags that are already in place. I do not use a cycleway tag on public rights of way as it has no meaning in law and adds no further information than the highway tag and the yes/no tags for classes of user, as above. Where a public right of way is also a named or reference-numbered cycleway (local, regional or national) I use the 'route' relation (rather than a key tag) with route=bicycle, network= , ref= and, where appropriate name= (which does not preclude adding other route relations to the same way segment where it is also an acknowledged walking or horse riding route). Ways that are not public rights of way: If a way is NOT a public right of way the situation is more complex and a little more of a grey area. Obviously the same approach with relations can be used as in the preceding paragraph as it implies nothing about legal rights or surface. I tend to use highway=path where the path is in practice passable only on foot and highway=track where it is in practice also passable on horseback or bicycle; mountain bikes are a bit of a grey area - I tend to assume that they are capable of going anywhere! In addition I tag with foot/horse/bicycle= permissive or =no as appropriate based on local knowledge or regulations. I avoid using cycleway tags on these non-public-right-of-way paths as this could imply that they are intended primarily for cyclists whereas in most cases they are multiuse paths with equal rights for cyclists and walkers (and sometimes also for horse riders) - so as much a footway as a cycleway. The exception would be the dedicated cycleways beside major vehicular highways where these run parallel to the roadside footway. Surface I indicate using tracktype= where this seems important - or occasionally just paved/unpaved. ____________________________________________________________________________ __ I think that in those areas - like England - where much of the road mapping is complete or heading that way we are going to see an increasing effort to add off-road ways. The analogy (in Great Britain) is moving from OS 1:50000 general-purpose mapping to 1:25000 mapping for outdoorsy types. So it may be that there is a case for a fuller discussion of the issues involved. I have offered by two penn'th as a starter for ten (if that isn't a mixed metaphor, I don't know what is!). Sorry this is long or even in the wrong group ... and I suppose I am just asking for a deluge of objections by describing things in some detail ... so be gentle! Happy mapping! Mike Harris -----Original Message----- From: Bob Jonkman [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 05 January 2009 19:54 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OSM-newbies] Highway=stile vs Barrier=stile On 2 Jan 2009 at 21:22, Dave Stubbs wrote: >The tag was always highway=stile. There's thousands in existence. It >works perfectly well. There was a wiki discussion where barriers were >thought about and the people on that discussion decided to rename >stiles as barrier=stile to make it more consistent. There's no >compulsion for anybody to agree with this, and also there's no reason >we can't use both. Isn't a stile the two-sided ladder that goes over a fence? If so, a stile isn't a barrier, it establishes a way over a barrier, eg. a continuation of a footpath. So, my choice would be for highway=stile layer=1 Sadly, I think that horse has left the barn[*]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Approved_features/barriers http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dstile http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/barriers#Fords:_re ally_a_barrier.3F There are a couple of stiles in my neighbourhood; unfortunately I didn't think to note them when I was mapping there. --Bob. [*]: "That horse has left the barn" is a colloquialism for "That discussion is over" (for the non-native-English speakers on the list) _______________________________________________ newbies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/newbies
