I have no problems with it. I think highway=path + foot=designated means exactly the same as highway=footway: the last is just a shortcut for the first. Some people have a problem with highway=path + foot=designated + bicycle=designated, so if introducing highway=footcycleway helps them, I have no problem with that. I guess most of us are using presets anyway, so what the underlying combination of tags is doesn’t matter much, as long as it’s documented and data users can handle it.
Many countries have an official road classification system that is verifiable.
That was certainly the intention, but (as has been discussed in 94 other threads in these forums) it isn’t a suitable replacement because there’s no way of tagging legal access rights any more.
No, it doesn’t and we don’t. We already have foot=yes/no, bicycle=yes/no, segregated=yes/no and bicycle/foot=designated as additional tags to highway=footway and highway=cycleway, so there is no need e.g. for a footcycleway top-level tag.
we could well have a highway=footcycleway and it would fit perfectly, would not require lots of explanations, the segregated=yes/no tag would also integrate perfectly and we would not need foot or bicycle access tags on everyone of them as we do with path.
I understood sofar OSMAmericana is deriving the shields from network and ref and not requiring a highway=interstate or highway=state_highway or highway=autobahn… Older maps like OpenStreetMap.de or OSMCarto deriving the shields from highway and ref.
So if we discuss the generic vs. intuitive path separately, I think that there already are sufficient tags to describe the difficulty of an actual path/trail:
hw=: This is a well-made, wide, often paved way with no difficulty, usually easily passable even for wheelchairs. You can always expect that it is easy to use for the designated mode of travel.
hw=<whatever resembles a real hiking trail, possibly single-track>: This should be combined with the well-established sac_scale to describe difficulty for hikers, (or mtb for bikes or horse_scale for riders). Without further tagging it should imply sac_scale=hiking hw=via_ferrata: Real climbing paths, only for climbers
I think sac_scale already covers the whole range of hiking trails:
sac_scale=hiking is already defined for simple, no-care trails. Wiki says: “Requirements: None. Can be hiked in ordinary sports shoes/trainers. Orientation straightforward, even without a map”
sac_scale=demanding_alpine_hiking/difficult_alpine_hiking already cover simple and challenging stretches with climbing and mountaineering equipment
Therefore I see no need for extra tagging for climbing or scrambling, that is already included in sac_scale.
Beyond that, I agree that legal access and usability should be strictly separated, and usability must be separated by mode of use (sac_scale, mtb:, horse_scale) to make sense and not mixed up/implying a specific mode (smoothness). Again, the dilemma is that path is a misleading tag resulting in ambiguous use, so we need to evaluate the access tags to try and guess what it actually means. But that’s the other topic again.
Isn’t that what everyone on this forum always does?
Seriously though, I wasn’t even suggesting we deprecate those tags—just pointing out the double standard.
Exactly! And as someone permanently based in Southeast Asia, I’m bringing my perspective to the table because it’s obvious the tag schemes were created with western/developed countries in mind.
Yes, but in “much of the world” (developing countries make up 80+% of the world), most pathways aren’t signed, and two-wheel motorized vehicles are legally allowed—even on rugged trails, where they’re often the main intended use.
Except that it doesn’t, at least not necessarily. I’ve written about this on another thread so won’t repeat that here. designated simply means some sort of official designation, and in parts of the world this absolutely does have a different meaning on a footway vs. on a path. I don’t know (or much care) what designated was intended to express, but it absolutely can be used and does express these kinds of real-life differences.
Sure, and like I said, I’m not categorically against a footcycleway. But let’s take your idea further. Would you be okay with a footcyclewaysegregated (and, of course also cyclewaysegregated & footwaysegregated) top-level tags? If that rubs you the wrong way, then surely your reasoning does extend to mopeds? Mopeds are allowed on some cycleways, so how about footcyclemopedway (and, naturally of course thus also the cyclemopedway, cyclemopedwaysegregated & footcyclemopedwaysegregated) tags? Also service vehicles are allowed on some cycleways, and we haven’t even started to ‘integrate’ the surface tags: footcyclemopedservicecarwaysegregatedasphalt … I hope you get my point about the power of combinatorics mentioned earlier. Where, in your opinion, would be a ‘natural’ or ‘obvious’ place to stop, and why?
Also, at least some road use categories form natural hierarchies. I’d say that highway=mtbway suggested by @julcnx earlier, fails for this reason. An MTB is a type of bicycle, and therefore exists on a hierarchy. It is therefore much better to use the mtb:scale tags for them. I won’t take my roadie to anything other that mtb:scale=0 tagged way (or one that doesn’t have an mtb:scale at all), but might ride my commuter bike on a short stretch of mtb:scale=2 tagged way if it saves me time. Also, deciding between a path and an mtbway invites edit wars, but it is easy to have an additional tag for MTBs that also allows gradations (at least in the FtR world, where bicycles are legally allowed everywhere).
The tag highway=track is used for minor land-access roads that are not considered part of the general-purpose road network […] Track roads are used by four-wheeled (two-track) vehicles and often take the form of two wheel tracks in the ground
via_ferrata is quite orthogonal to climbing. It is a distinct thing, with specialized gear (“ferrata set”), specialized look (iron rope you attach yourself to). Very hard scrambles cannot be via_ferrata if the iron rope is not there.
I would add, but not sure if it makes much sense to those unfamiliar with climbing,
via ferrata is aid climbing, whereas
climbing usually represents free climbing, climbing without aid
Ropes and equipment are used only for security in case of a fall, not to help someone get up.
It is almost like comparing a tram or a trolley bus to a bus.
It also fails as a replacement for designation. As I said earlier in one of the many threads, we should separate legal access, usability, and designation into 3 different tags, instead of trying to shove it into a single one.
And while we’re at it, adding priority would also be nice, because in some countries, some types of roads only allow certain modes of transportation as “guests”[1]. Something that people are now deducing from the highway-value, but it really only works with highway=footway and highway=cycleway.
pedestrians or mopeds on cycleways, motorized vehicles in pedestrian zones, bicycles on a non-segregated shared use path, or destination traffic on footways, just to name a few ↩︎
Usability, access and designation are 3 completely different things. You can have a shared-use foot- and cycleway inside a military area, which is unusable for cyclists. Yet, the fact that it’s signed as a shared-use path gives it a designation.
Mapping something as a cycleway that is unusable by cyclists is wrong I think. Kind of like using path for scrambles (there there is the escuse of no better tag existing). That somebody intended it for cyclist is kind of meaningless.
While I’d like to agree with this (and do agree with much of what @Nop says above), I really can’t. In principle, trying to divide legal access and physical suitability as far as possible absolutely ought to be the goal. However, the very division between legal access and usability is a gross oversimplification, or at least a false dichotomy. =designated precisely provides a third option between the two.
In the Freedom to Roam world, one can walk and bicycle almost everywhere. Specifically, anything that we would tag with highway=path legally implies bothfoot=yes and bicycle=yes. I.e.: one cannot legally restrict bicycling on pathways (except in some extremely rare and very specific cases). The access-tags lose almost all meaning, because they are already implied by the highway-tag value. As I’ve written in another thread, the =designated tags absolutely do have a specific meaning for paths with real world consequences.
The only “problem”, or curiosity with the =designated tag is that it is overdetermined (or multiply determined): it follows both from the roundel-type (normative) traffic signs and non-roudel-type (non-normative) pathway and route-signs. But that’s it. At least in the FtR world, also the non-normative signs have very real world consequences (see the link above for examples of some). Also, the application of the tag is objective: it requires some kind of sign to be present that designates the path as a preferred route for walking and/or bicycles.
