I’ve been trying to work out how OSM can be used to record and display the cycle networks in Oxford. I can get most of the way with the standard tagging in Map Features, but run up a few situations where the tagging doesn’t fit the reality. One of these is the mishmash of tagging rules for footways/cycleways/bridleways/paths.
I think what we need is a tagging approach that is simple enough to let newbies tag clearly and reliably, and also simple enough to avoid needing complicated deciphering by renderers. We don’t have that at the moment. As a general principle, I think Key:highway should do most of the work. It should concentrate on describing the physical nature of the way, both because that’s fairly easy to agree on (and the established principle for roads), and because it mostly tells map-users what they want to know. We should leave the legal technicalities, and any unusual access restrictions to subsidiary tags. Path/footway/cycleway/bridleway/track isn’t really descriptive enough, and come laden with assumptions about cycle access (in particular) that currently need to be reviewed when tagging and rendering. I think there’s a need for a highway=cycle&footway tag, for paths that it is legal and practical to cycle on, but which are shared with pedestrians. This leaves highway=cycleway for those paths where either pedestrians have a separate path, or where there’s so much room that nobody’s fussed. Separately from that, I would agree (picking up a discussion on the Talk list), that there should be a designation=footpath/bridleway/permissive_footpath etc tag, to record the legal status where known (usually from a signpost). The main advantage of this is that it avoids polluting the highway key (which is the main one that renderers look at) with potentially misleading right-of-way info (eg footpaths that no-one objects to being cycled on, mudbath bridleways that you would be advised to avoid cycling on). The access tags should be mainly for the routing software, and there to correct the default assumptions generated by the highway tag. I would suggest that the routing software should be assumed to ignore the designation tag, because that’s the simplest approach – keeping the different issues separate. I think the access=designated/permissive tags should be deprecated and instead concentrate on things that are meaningful for routing software, perhaps access=preferred/yes/discouraged/no. I’d like feedback on two things: 1) highway=cycle&footway 2) divorcing the legal status from the highway tag Richard Mann Oxford
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