I tag for the use of the 'path/road/etc'.
If it is for a walker then I tag the width for the walker, usually this
is the width at ground level but there are ones where the smaller width
is at hip level (rocks) so I tag the width there.
A width of 0.3 me3ans I have to remove my pack and push it through
infront of me. If the walk length is more than 3 days I may have to
remove things from the pack and make 2 trips.
On 23/5/20 2:20 am, Tod Fitch wrote:
On May 22, 2020, at 5:24 AM, Ture Pålsson via Tagging
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
22 maj 2020 kl. 12:52 skrev Daniel Westergren <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>:
[…] Then there is width, which is only tagged on 3.5% of
highway=path. I was discussing width of paths in another forum. For
a forest path, would you say width is measured as the actual tread
on the ground only? For a runner and MTB cyclist that would make
sense, but for a hiker with a big backpack a width of 0.3 m may mean
they think it's not possible to walk there.
We need loading_gauge=* tag. :-)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge)
Width is, at least in my area, going to be a hard issue.
For background, I have been volunteering on trail maintenance teams in
a near by designated wilderness area where the vegetation is largely
chaparral (scrub) and this has shaped my opinion.
Many of our trails were originally ranch access roads (highway=track)
and in some short sections here and there where things were scraped to
bedrock the trails remains that wide, maybe 3m. However the
overwhelming majority of the trail mileage have been overgrown to the
point of being impassible on foot without constant maintenance. Our
standard for maintaining a section of trail is that the tread (where
your foot meets the ground) should be a minimum of 0.5m and that the
width at shoulder level should be 2m. In the occasional areas where we
have trees, etc., we strive for about 3m vertical clearance so that an
equestrian can get through. Being a designated wilderness, no power
tools or wheeled vehicles are allowed so access is by hiking and work
is performed with hand tools.
If you look to motor vehicle roads, width is of the traveled way, not
of the right of way nor of the way cleared of vegetation (i.e. side
drainage or shoulders, etc.). From that point of view, a trail width
should likely be the tread width. But as noted by Daniel, a hiker with
a big pack might be more interested in the width at pack/shoulder
level (“loading gauge”).
The issues in mapping trail width in my area include:
1. Chaparral is fast growing. So that 0.5m/2m width trail we fixed
today will shrink each rainy season and without maintenance is
likely to become impassible in maybe 5 years time.
2. Trail maintenance teams are lucky to be able to clean up 2km of
trail in a session. So it takes multiple sessions to keep a
typical trail maintained and for any given trail those are
sessions occur over a number of years (we target areas where
things are worst).
The result is that trail width is highly variable both over the length
of a trail and over time. If mapped in high detail, the width you map
this hiking season will be wrong next year. Heck, it might even be
wrong next month depending on what month of the year your did your survey.
For what it is worth, I don’t usually tag the width of the trails.
Mostly for the above reasons: To do it properly I’d have to be taking
very detailed field notes and have to re-survey each trail at least
once a year. And even if I did that, when I look at the typical data
consumer I see that they usually have stale OSM data so any attempt to
keep OSM up to the day correct on field conditions wouldn’t be very
useful anyway.
Cheers!
Tod
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