Until 2024, Via Alpina was a collection of 5 routes named red, blue, green, yellow and purple. According to via-alpina.org, since 2024 there has been only one Via Alpina route; it is based on the red route, with a new numbering scheme for stages.
I see that the data in OSM has not been updated. Is there a reason for this, other than latency? Are there any objections to removing the old colour routes? As for stages, can we share the workload? For instance we could do it by country (the route goes through eight countries).
One guy said in his area there are still signs of the abandoned blue route, which is abandoned as a project while the actual paths are members of other well trotten long distance hiking routes.
In my experience, abandoned routes are rarely scrubbed on the ground, or at least not totally. I donât think it should be a strict criterion for removing routes from OSM, because the main role of routes on maps is to incite people to go there (as long as the route âexistsâ); helping people who are there to make sense of old signs is secondary.
If we knew where sections of the routes are still visible and might be confusing, we could maintain special relations with names such as âformer Via Alpina blueâ, but I am afraid that this information will be difficult to obtain.
I agree we should âremoveâ routes that are abandoned, but Iâd keep them in some state of degraded abandoned route as long as they are still occasionally marked
Do we have tags that we could use for this, or do we need to make them up? Lifecycle prefixes such as disused:* or abandoned:* might fit the bill, but they probably wonât be used by consumers. Maybe we lack a tag about the quality of the signposting, from âfreshâ to âabandonedâ.
in this case from what we know so far (regarding just a tiny fraction of the whole route) abandoned seems right. The good thing about lifecycle prefixes is that youâll automatically ignore those you donât actively look for, so for some data consumers the route would appear removed (as is likely correct for them), while a mapper who sees the marks on the ground has a good chance to become aware of the abandonment of the route (as a blue via alpina).
I would add: as long as the abandoned route can still be followed by hikers, using the old markings.
(Unnecessary digression, feel free to skip!)
As a waymarking volunteer for several routes, I know that maintainers open new sections by waymarking them, except for the first and last corners. Then at opening time, they complete the new route, and remove the first and last visible corner markings of the old route. At the same time, the digital info is replaced. The opening is planned to occur when the old printed guidebooks are sold out and a new improved guide book is made available in the web shops. Thatâs how they manage JIT.
With this practice, old route sections/variations can be used for years.
Sometimes, old routes are no longer promoted and maintained, but the stickers and shields remain in place until they are lost by wear and tear. People with old printed guides or using old gps-traces still use them, sometimes massively.
Itâs worth noting that thereâs generally very little Via Alpina marking on the ground, perhaps an occasional mention of it on a signpost near a mountain hut, but thatâs all. The paths are generally marked (or in Italy, maybe markedâŠ) with the standard footway markings for the country (eg white, red, red+white, blue etc) as maintained the same on all the preferred / supported mountain paths (and connecting bits of track and road) by the local sections of the relevant alpine clubs. Just occasionally there are other colour combinations which are sometimes identifiable as other local routes, eg a named loop around some popular valleys or similar, but thereâs no âblueâ / âgreenâ / âpurpleâ / âyellowâ markings corresponding to the Via Alpina (old) colours.
The existence or not of a named route on a website maintained by another organisation is not immediately or significantly going to alter the marking of any way maintained by the national alpine/hiking clubs. Over time, there might be slightly fewer people using a specific sequence of paths (and therefore huts and village/town hostels/hotels etc), but itâs likely to continue to be possible to walk any âold Via Alpina routeâ if people want to and have a record of it.
Interesting. I knew that all E*, at least here in France, are based on (mostly) national and (marginally) regional routes. But it did not strike me as obvious from either the website or the geometry of the route as mapped in OSM that ViaAlpina was the same. If this was confirmed as a design principle, it would make our task very different I presume.
The Via Alpina routes are/were an interesting resource at the planning stage for a walk, knowing that thereâs definitely a decent route through a line of places, although you have to watch the day lengths you want against their (old?) stages, as they could suddenly throw you a 2000m climb day when you want 1000m max or 12-15hr total walk (with a big bag) when youâd wanted 8 or 9hr max. Sometimes thereâs intermediate accomodation, but sometimes you have to go a different way unless carrying tent etc. which we avoided (Have done from Maribor to S of France with huts hotels etc in 2 week sections over quite a few years).
On the walk, if following a Via Alpina route youâd need to know the names of the settlements, passes and huts (when getting near) you want to take and follow the signs to these; OSMAnd with a bunch of place markers or a pre-prepared track line is great, with paper maps for backup. Occasionally signposts have numbered routes (and alternates) but very very rarely Via Alpina indications that I recall.
On the other hand, a couple of times weâve looked at a map in the evening and noted that weâve been on a Via Alpina route for the last day and a half. Sometimes they are just the main obvious route along the Alps. (And then at other times, some of the (old) Via Alpinas would wander off in a big loop to visit another country).
This obviously begs the question: Is the Via Alpina actually something that can be mapped in openstreetmap, if you could walk it for such a distance and nothing on the ground that would have told you, that you were walking that route?
PS: I am very aware of bad signage, around here even four hour roundtrip walks signed by the local tourism office sometimes are a chore to map from what is on the ground without sometimes considerable backtracking when missing an unsigned turn.
Itâs an interesting thought, Hungerburg. Information on the routes was certainly published to the public with the intention that they could follow the route, with occasional information boards, posters, leaflets etc visible. But it was practically necessary to view the Via Alpina website to confirm the choice of ways they were proposing. The whole Via Alpina concept is rather a shared idea made by volunteers and offered to the public, and not any kind of business which profits from the use of the route.
Looking into the history a little more, seems there was a bunch of EU funding in the 2000âs (primarily to encourage the economy of remote alpine areas by supporting and encouraging more tourism). This led to the âopeningâ of the (old) routes in 2005 - including claimed waymarking with small white square âflagâ pointers with blue+red VA logo (which I have seen as still existing in places). So from that date and for some years after it could have been possible, in principle, to walk - and therefore map - the (old) routes using information on the ground. [edit: also see ViaAlpina - OpenStreetMap Wiki including explicit permission letter]
Also looking at the Wikipedia page for the V.A., which is in the same position as OSM as having had lots of time and effort expended in the old routes (which have existed roughly over the same entire life of Wikipedia and OSM) and has also not (yet) had the old content moved aside and replaced. There has been one relevant and useful change on the Wikipedia page, in the âexternal linksâ section, as well as referring to the live via-alpina.org a snapshot (apparently at the end of 2023) of the old site is preserved at old.via-alpina.org
So it feels like the 5 old super-route relations could be renamed as âold Via Alpina âŠâ and reference the âold.â prefixed website rather than the live one. Thereâs also a super-super-route relation 285683 - yes, itâs that early in OSM history - which is a bit of a dodgy âcategoryâ relation strictly, but convenient and old and lists the 5 (super)routes.
The individual âstageâ route relations have the ways, and apart from the (old) Red could be left as they are, except again usefully pointing at the âold.â website. The (old) Red needs more careful review against the new single route. Probably a bunch of the stages are in both (or maybe some of the eg Yellow, Blue days are also adopted). So they could have new names/refs and old_name/old_ref (??) for the old Red stage numbers. Then a new superroute can string these together. But the new admins of via-alpina.org should be contacted to get permission to represent their new route in OSM, I can only presume they would be happy with this, but I think it could only be set up with their website as the primary source.