On Sat, 2008-07-19 at 16:35 +0100, Nick Whitelegg wrote: > >What is the limit between "highway=byway" and "highway=track" ? > > Byway is an official byway (a certain class of right of way in the UK), > or, if motorcar=no added, a restricted byway. > A "highway=track" is any other type of track - you can use the > foot/horse/bicycle tags to describe precisely what sort of traffic is > allowed on it.
What exactly are we trying to achieve with highway=byway? I can think of two possible uses but both seem to have unresolved issues. The first is simply to record that a particular way exists and has certain access rights. In this instance I don't see highway=byway being any different to highway=track, foot=yes, bicycle=yes, horse=yes, motorcycle=yes, motorcar=yes and the latter would probably make more sense to non-uk people. The second is to record the exact legal classification of the way as a byway rather than another entity with similar access permissions e.g. a "Green Lane" (marked with green dots on OS maps with the key: "Other routes with public access"). In this case the current practise of tagging motorcar=no to indicate a restricted byway is insufficient as this afternoon I walked along a BOAT that had also had a traffic order preventing use by motorcars. I'm personally starting to favour tagging byways as highway=track with the appropriate access permissions in the same way that the map features page now defines highway=footpath as highway=path, foot=yes. The only issue I can see is that we would need to add a horsedrawn access tag to differentiate between bridleways and restricted byways. Regards, Andy _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk