History of proposals to fix highway=path ambiguity – and a wayforward?

[StC]

@_MisterY

Yes, that probably deserves some clarification. I use the word “route” for lack of a better one. I’d probably use path or way, if they didn’t already have a different context within OSM. Route, for me, means a hiking route. The thing that is currently mapped as a relation (omg, what a spaghetti of terms) and may include multiple paths, roads, and whatever else.

I proposed another view here: that, semantically, all paths and highways are special cases of routes (those that are immediately visible as such because they draw a line on the ground). And that we could have other route types in addition to these and to relations that represent signed routes: routes defined by cairns, free routes on pedestrian areas, etc

@_MisterY

Edit: Well, ok, that’s something, too. A route could be defined instead but it would need to include a section of terrain that has no paths on it. How to do that?

A way with two points for a free route, a way with n points for a series of cairns, a way with n points for a scramble, an area for a skitour route between two passes, a relation for other types of routes, etc.