On 04/10/2019 12:46, Andrew Davidson wrote:
I think at one point footway was assumed to be paved and path unpaved.
I think that it's actually a bit more complicated than that. The
"standard" style on OpenStreetMap.org changed to displaying footway and
path the same because it was clear that communities around the world had
different views on what each one meant - some used footway for urban
paved paths and path for rural unpaved ones, and some vice versa. This
discussion from about 4 years ago:
https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/1698#issuecomment-134914770
(read both above and below that comment) covers it fairly well.
Going back to the dawn of OSM, "path" wasn't one of the original
"highway" types. When OSM was started in the UK, the
"footway/bridleway/cycleway" split was based on what we typically saw
paths "mostly used for". It'd be an odd bridleway or cycleway here that
didn't allow pedestrians to also use it, so the "mostly used for" idea
made sense.
In places like Germany, however, dedicated infrastructure is more
common, and there are usually signs telling you exactly what you are
allowed to do. As I understand it (and this was before my time, so this
is largely hearsay) "cycleway" and "footway" got used by the local
community for the dedicated infrastructure there, leaving a problem of
what to tag what we in the UK would now call "shared-use" or "multi-use"
paths, and the likes of https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/24377739 in
Perth would also fit too. "highway=path" (with the numerous subtags
also needed) got invented for this use, and the 1-liner descriptions you
see at e.g. https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/highway#values
reflect this use
However, the adoption worldwide was often for rural unpaved paths (which
based on the meaning of the original English words would make sense) but
not always - and it was because OSM Carto is a style that has to work
everywhere that the decision that I linked to at the top of this message
was made. That doesn't mean that communities don't still think that
"footway" and "path" have other slightly different meanings and map them
to their legal code and custom and practice in different ways, and have
a set of "$country tagging guidelines" to reflect that.
Usage varies too - compare e.g.
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.in/keys/highway#values ,
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.fr/keys/highway#values and
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org.uk/keys/highway#values . France and
the UK aren't that different, but the frequency of usage of footway vs
path is very different.
Best Regards,
Andy
PS: For the avoidance of doubt I'm absolutely not trying to influence
what goes into the "Australian Tagging Guidelines" here - just trying to
fill in a bit of history!
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