Nick Barker sent me a message through openstreetmap.org - hope you don't mind me replying here:
>I've just been going through some edits and i noticed you changed the Tyers rail trail back to a >path from a bridleway and just was wondering why. >The reason i tagged it as a bridleway as apparently on the rail trail website it says horses are >allowed. Looking at trail hierarchies i therefore tagged it as a bridleway as >walkers only = path > walkers and cyclists (obviously path for MTB only but its definitely doable on >a hybrid - the rail trail website err well on the side of caution) = cycleway > walkers cyclists and horses = bridleway. (note this is a UK/european system as far as i know) >i asked this on the forum and people sort of agreed in the absence of any specific aussie system >this made the most sense. >Likewise for the Walhalla rail trail too. >What are you thoughts on this? Thanks for raising this. My thoughts are that the basic tag should be as representative as possible. There are lots of different websites, apps etc that use openstreetmap, so we should tag whatever is most useful. Cycling-focused maps will tend to show highway=cycleway and ignore highway=bridleway. I don't know if there are equestrian-focused maps - horseriding is a pretty fringe activity compared to cycling. A bridleway is not just "a path that horse riders can go on", it's a bit unique. Typically the surface is very soft, like grass or sand, and they often have cavalettis to stop other kinds of traffic. Although you might be able to ride bikes on some bridleways, that wouldn't be the default assumption. We do have a few bridleways around the place, mostly in outer outer suburbs with established horse riding areas, like Lysterfield, Victoria. So, the tagging that makes the most sense to me: highway=cycleway: a path that is designed for (non-mtb) cycling (and nearly always caters for pedestrians too). If horses are allowed, then horse=yes highway=bridleway: a path that is specifically designed for horse riders, pretty much to the exclusion of others. highway=footway: a good quality path for pedestrians highway=path: other paths that could be used by hikers or mountain bikers, that aren't of the same quality as a cycleway/footway. Tagging a rail trail as a bridleway doesn't make much sense to me for a few reasons: 1) The number of horse riders is a tiny fraction of the number of cyclists 2) Some rail trails have sections that split between a designated bridleway (off the railway alignment) and the main rail trail. Tagging the main rail trail as highway=cycleway, horse=yes/no (and then a separate highway=bridleway) is clear and makes sense. Switching the main rail trail from highway=bridleway to highway=cycleway would be kind of bizarre. For example: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/-37.70318/143.63900&layers=N Steve
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