Steve Bennett wrote: > On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 12:14 AM, Richard Fairhurst > > <rich...@systemed.net> wrote: > > highway=footway -> a path intended for pedestrian use > > highway=cycleway -> a path intended for pedestrian and cycle use > > highway=bridleway -> a path intended for pedestrian and horse use[1] > > Boy, I like this way of thinking. Of course, it must be controversial > given the preceding comments, but it does make a lot of sense.
And at one time it was that easy in OSM, but the real world really isn't. In some countries it may work fine, but in other countries the distinction between the three has no connection with the actual situation and would introduce a number of ambiguities where you don't really know anymore whether something is allowed or not. Take cycleways for example. Over here mopeds are allowed on paths that are signed as cycleway. Now, on the other hand we also had paths which weren't cycleways but allowed bicycles (but no mopeds) tagged as cycleway. Conflict between the two: would a route planner now allow mopeds on them or not? Sure, one could explicitly tag the moped=yes/no but (a) mappers forget about it, and (b) even if they don't, they often do not know the exact rules. And not forgetting that (c) traffic code isn't some static thing, it changes over time and what has been allowed on a certain path with certain signs, may not be in future. Hence the addition of highway=path was actually a welcome additional tag. Now we can tag the paths that are legal cycleways as highway=cycleway (and likewise for footpaths and bridleways), and other paths with the generic highway=path. The traffic signs on those paths can then be translated to access tags. Greetings Ben _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk