On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 00:31, Daniel Westergren <wes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well said John. When we now have highway=path, we need a subtag. > > Question is, on what criteria would we differentiate a trail from another > "path"? Groomed vs beaten may not be specific enough. But by using some > combination of dictionary definitions of trail, in the sense of path, could > we come up with some verifiable criteria for when such a subtag should be > used? What I'm looking for is to differentiate forest and mountain paths > from urban paths or groomed, smooth paths. When people have been clearing > forest to make a path more visible and passable, that's still a beaten path > to me. > > And yes, path=trail would probably need to be used for trails tagged as > footway too, although I personally see footway as an urban path and always > use path for a trail. > > Whatever subtag , we're still stuck with all those cases when highway=path > is not combined with any other tag (whether it should be path=trail or > anything else). How would we treat those? Obviously we can't take it for > granted that those cases should have path=trail. > > > 1. Can we agree on whether or not we need a subtag like path=trail? > Since it's probably too late for highway=trail, which by all means would > have been the best option. > 2. If we introduce path=trail, what would be the criteria for when it > should be used? > 3. What about all the cases of highway=path that don't have and will > not have path=trail? Old or new. Some probably should (like when > surface=ground), others should never have path=trail. It will still make it > difficult to render those cases and for data consumers to choose a fallback > value for those cases. > 4. What about edge cases? It may have been a beaten path that has been > groomed with better surface material to make it more accessible for > example. Would it still be considered for path=trail? > > Agreed, the biggest question is how do you define that criteria for what is going to be tagged a a hiking trail and not a hiking trail. Eg. if you have a smooth paved track through the rainforest that the authorities created for grandparents and strollers, is that a hiking trail just because it's in a forest area? What about a stroll through the hills of grasslands that have no forest or mountains, is that marked as a hiking trail? I think it's too hard to have a reliable criteria for this which can be objectively surveyed, it's much easier to tag each attribute individually on their own independent scale. Anything should work with both highway=footway and highway=path, since one at the core of the definition on the wiki highway=footway is for primary walking (which most designated hiking trails are), and highway=path is for mixed use or unspecified usage paths (which some hiking trails are).
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