Hello Peter,

I would say the most important thing with official rights of way is to tag them 
with designation=public_footpath, public_bridleway, public_byway or 
restricted_byway (as appropriate). The designation tag is AFAIK generally 
regarded these days as the most definitive indication of rights of way status. 
Freemap (free-map.org.uk) will only render paths with a designation tag in 
colour; all other paths are rendered as black lines - but more importantly it 
makes the data unambiguous.

Physical surface is more contentious. My own preference is highway=path for 
rough, muddy countryside paths and highway=footway for paved urban paths. 
Opinions differ on that.

foot,horse, etc are going out of fashion in the main (AFAIK) *unless* it's a 
permissive path. In this case you need to indicate which modes of transport 
have permissive access with foot, hors or bicycle = permissive.

However, please note that to get the Mapnik renderer to render highway=path as 
red dotted lines, you need to tag it with foot=designated - not 
designation=public_footpath. This is tagging for the renderer, so maybe not a 
good idea, though I have to admit I do it ATM in addition to the designation 
tag.

Nick

-----Peter Oliver <[email protected]> wrote: -----
To: [email protected]
From: Peter Oliver <[email protected]>
Date: 04/05/2011 01:23PM
Subject: [Talk-GB] On footpaths

I'm new to Open Street Map, and in trying to map some local footpaths I pretty 
rapidly found myself at 
"http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Tagging_Guidelines#Rights_of_ways_in_England_and_Wales";
 and the associated controversy.

First, let me summarise the situation as I see it:

• There's an "old" method of tagging ways suitable for pedestrians, and a "new" 
method.
• No consensus on which method is best has/can be reached, and the two sides of 
the argument have effectively agreed to differ.  Both tagging methods are in 
active use.
• Tagging a way "highway=footway" is equivalent to tagging it "highway=path; 
foot=..." (plus, in either case, additional tags to indicate the legal status 
of the route).

It seems like I'm now armed with enough knowledge to get stuck in and start 
mapping some footpaths, using whichever tagging method I happen to prefer.  
However, both Mapnik and Osmarender display these two supposedly equivalent 
forms of footpath differently!  Osmarender uses different colours, and Mapnik 
replaces a dotted pink line with a dashed black one.

So, my question is, is there some subtle difference in meaning that I've missed 
between these two tagging methods, or it simply that the renders have not been 
updated to understand the "new" form of tagging?

-- 
Peter Oliver_______________________________________________
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