As I said in Highway=path wiki page additions and updates - #28 by Friendly_Ghost, I’d love to demote highway=path to a sort of highway=road where you know that motor vehicles can’t or are not allowed to pass, but we first need to find a consensus regarding alternative tagging schemes that can replace most highway=path in meaningful ways.
Replacing highway=path with an even more meaningless and ambiguous tag is in my opinion counterproductive.
You can simply use highway=footway for this.