That very much depends on where you are in the world. In the UK, > 90% of cycleways are “shared used paths” in the sense of “being designed to a standard appropriate for at least cycle and foot use”. They may be segregated or not (there are pictures of both in the wikipedia article), but they are shared use.
As another example, even in the Netherlands you can find urban cycleways that are the only way of getting from A to B on foot. Here’s an example in Gouda. See (just across the road) here in Mapillary (with what I presume is a bike + mofa sign) and in the other direction here in Google Street View (just a bike signed there). On neither side of the road is there a separate footpath.
I meant worldwide, with shared use being defined by signage and paths refering to all highway=path tagged ways in OSM. I think then my assertion holds, local exceptions notwithstanding.
I would rather say, worldwide it’s more likely that you won’t find signage on paths and it’s rather the opposite, everyone might use it, except it’s forbidden by a sign.
But anyway, in OSM in the majority of areas highway=path is allowed to be used by “everyone” and this might be hard to change. If you want to categorize highway=path further, ok. But keep changing access out.
I think two meaning of shared path are being confused:
Shared use as in he wikipedia article linked above, which is reglemened, usually signed, made so it is easy to bike on, usually is in urban settings (or possibly connecting setlements) etc. and in OSM it might be mapped as path or not, but definitely is not what most highway=paths are.
Shared use as in “access is no specifically designated by anything, so pretty much anything is legaly able to use it (as long as it is not a car)”. This is indeed the only thing that highway=paths have in common, making the tag very vague in its meaning.
OSM does not have such kind of concept as you describe in 1) and it will be kind of hard to implement it. In laws, each country defines certain groups and make certain exceptions. That concept doesn’t really work on a global project. That’s why in OSM we have all those access-tags and we try to translate local regulations into these tags. So an American does not need to study Austrian traffic law to use OSM in Austria.
OSM need a highway-tag which is kind of free in it’s definition for “paths”. That doesn’t mean, there is no space for multiple categories. But all of them might be allowed globally to be used by everyone (except cars,…). But for sure every comunnity can again define it’s default access, like it’s done for all the other highways-types
I do not see why. How is i different from highway=footway/cycleway? Those are about access. highway=shared_use would be just a way where both footway and cycleway are appropriate but too restrictive. What would be hard about it? Whether it should be done is another question (I think it should and pathway=multi_use should mean what highway=path means now).
Not at all, I don’t want to leave anyone with that impression! There is no general right to roam, and I quite often add access=private to rural tracks and paths.
My point was that where paths are open to the public, as in the two examples of public land I mentioned, there is often no distinction between pedestrians, horses, and bicycles. It is “motor vehicles” that are usually subject to prohibitions. If a land manager wants to permit walkers but not cyclists (or horses) they would need to make that visible in some way, as they do in the nature reserve I mentioned.
Because the laws are different per country. Depending on the importance of cycling, riding, walking,… In Germany a signed cycleway is only to be used for cyclist, a bridleway is exclusive for horse riding,…
What you describe as highway=shared_use is highway=path in Germany. highway=path+bicycle=designated+foot=designated has about 277000 occurrences. If you are talking about ways in the woods, in Germany each state has it’s own laws. Some require 2m width of ways to allow cycling, some states have different rules.
The highway=cycleway is the primary way to indicate that the used way is mainly or exclusively for bicycles.
Mainly or exclusively sounds not like shared use. It sounds to me more like it’s made for cyclist and might be used by others as well. Where shared use is more like equal rights for everyone on this way.
That page was created by someone from Germany in 2007 . OSM normally uses British English names for things, though I’m sure that in this case we’re going to have to live with the tagging that we already have - data consumers will just have to “know” that you can’t walk on a cycleway in Germany if there are no explicit tags.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, I did stumble across this post from 2008
The point is, that currently highway=path is used for what you describe as *=shared_use aka “legally everyone is allowed to use that path”. In a lot of areas in our world, you might be legally allowed to climb on mountains by bike or horse or… Introducing *=shared_use will not change anything on the problem regarding difficulty.
Here (AT) path is more about sac_scale than about designation.
Of note, the short description there “Ein allgemeiner oder Mehrzweckweg für nicht-motorisierten Verkehr.” “A generic or shared use way for non-motorized traffic” better fits the German use.
I got that point, just want to tell you that this is not going to work out. Globally the ways are too diverse to squeeze them in a few categories. Especially if those categories are from different kind. You can’t define on one side ways by usage and at the other side by difficulty.
If you mix different things, the chances are pretty high, that one physical way will fall into several of your categories.
I’m totally with you, if you want to split the range of highway=path into ~3 different levels of difficulty. But you need to keep the usage out of this. Each of the ~3 new categories must maintain the same usage as highway=path is currently covering.
How is your shared_use better that it’s worth re-tagging millions of ways? That’s the question you need to answer With your shared_use you still would need the access-tags.
Depends on the definition of your shared_use. By law I believe both ways are allowed to be used by pedestrians and cyclists. the differences are well described in surface.
. OSM normally uses British English names for things, though I’m sure that in this case we’re going to have to live with the tagging that we already have - data consumers will just have to “know” that you can’t walk on a cycleway in Germany if there are no explicit tags.
With your