That depends on the law of the country. We have access tags to map that. Haven’t you said to the same a few times already It is tagged bicycle=no because of the country it is in and some signs on the way to get there. Nobody ever bothered to tag horse=no. I now did invite Nop to share opinion.
It is mapped as path. It is wide enough for a car, but does that matter? Predominant use is walking. I would find it confusing though, if such a thing would be a trail in Austria and a path in Germany just due to legal matters. In yet other parts of the world it might be mapped as footway.
Indeed. Something like this is very nearly an example. If memory serves I had to hang on to trees on the way down to stop myself from sliding to the bottom.
I reread post 28, I’d summarize as “Generic vs. intuitive use of highway=path” for a title. Post 28 opened that. This stayed for several posts, until topic shifted again. At earliest post 83 is about “importance” instead.
Thanks! I will add them.
Please note that the first post is a wiki entry and is open for anyone to add such info. At least I would assume so, since it was requested to be turned into a wiki entry, exactly for that purpose.
Could someone please share the hiking map legend that distinguishes paths by width? It’s in German language. I saw it in another thread recently but can’t seem to find it, and I’d like to follow up on it here.
Picture shows a “Steig”. I’d say width=0.25 - ÖAV (our top ramblers club) cartographers require similar minimal width for something to get the respective signature on their map, so it can be walked not in a cat walk fashion. (There may be exceptions for some very prominent routes.)
Unfortunately, width not always as easy to tell for trails where surface ground as in picture above.
2m - so it’s roughly the “path vs track” distinction in OSM as opposed to anything narrower. However, the difference between “narrow” and “wide” is just the dot and dash spacing, so it would be possible to have more than just 2 values considered (no plans to do that though).
One more picture of a map, that highlights hiking paths, while not especially a hiking map, but the official map of the local administration. They even classify primary, secondary, tertiary by width only:
Contrasting to the ramblers club map, for them mule-tracks (Karrenweg) also available for tractors, but from looking at what is mapped as such, no guarantee from me based on my limited local knowledge. The translation to English language kind of interesting, fair weather road: That might be about surface? But the rest of terms all about width.
PS: Although not on the legend, their map shows signature “Traces” from legend mentioned above: Where width cannot be told at all, because insufficient trampling to form a path and no markers present.
I looked again at some important map legends which can be found here. Most of them separate paths in difficulty. For example, I think a “Steig” (in the maps of AT and CH) is also a more difficult path. But this shows the problem: every map has different and rather vague subcategories for paths.
To get to the start: If there is to be a new tag, should it distinguish paths by difficulty, or by visibility, or by width?
For the problem of high alpine paths, for example to Mt. Everest, there could be a new highway=* tag based on difficulty, because that’s just not hiking anymore (based on SAC hiking scale) because its too difficult.
For the problem of badly visible trails, or even just trails with no tracks on the ground, there could be a new highway= tag based on visibility.
I think none of these. Like with roads it should be more about importance, function or usage (we have already that distinction for footway vs bridleway vs cycleway).
For example, some paths are specialized for mountaineering, requiring equipment and permits. Others are official hiking trails, maintained and marked by national parks or local hiking clubs.
Then there are informal or unofficial trails, which could be anything and are entirely at your own risk. This could address the safety aspect, with a different top-level tag rendering users: “You’re outside an official, maintained area—proceed at your own risk.”
I posted the legend of BEV, our OS (ordinance survey) map producer. Curious as always, I panned their map for where they use signature “wide footpath”. It took me some time, but I have found one occurence. Couriously it is called Steig, mapped as a footway in OSM ever since, and it is 2m wide asphalted (since ages/meanwhile?)
Just got back from a dirt bike ride exploring nearby mountain trails. The place was a maze of paths—some wide (1-1.5m), some narrow (0.3-1m), and others extremely tight (<0.3m).
I ended up having to turn back on the narrowest sections because visibility was nonexistent, or the exposure made it too risky. Realized this happens a lot on these tiny trails, and it’d actually be useful if trails were classified by width. Right now, they all look identical on maps, which can be pretty misleading.
It is tagged bicycle=no because of the country it is in and some signs on the way to get there. Nobody ever bothered to tag horse=no. I now did invite Nop to share opinion.
