Proposal:Path

The Feature Page for the approved proposal Path is located at Tag:highway=path

The Feature Page for the approved proposal Path is located at Tag:access=designated

Path
Proposal status:	Approved (active)
Proposed by:	Cbm and Hawke
Draft started:	2007-12-26
Vote start:	2008-05-16
Vote end:	2008-06-02

Rationale

Provide a value for a nonspecific or multi-use path.

Provide a method to indicate that a route is designated as intended for a particular use, as opposed to such use merely being allowed.

Applies to

• Highway
• Access

Usage

This proposal adds two values to existing keys:

• highway=path
• access=designated

highway=path is a generic path, either multi-use, or unspecified usage. The default access restriction of highway=path is "open to all non-motorized vehicles, but emergency vehicles are allowed".

highway=path+bicycle=designated+foot=yes is supposed to be equivalent to highway=cycleway,foot=yes and highway=path+foot=designated is supposed to be equivalent to highway=footway.

In practice this created some problems (especially in Germany) where a designation for one mode of travel implies hard restrictions for all others while cycleway and footway had been used very loosely, in many cases not indicating a designation at all. In the meantime this has gotten better because many mappers are adding designation tags to highway=cycleway and highway=footway as well.

highway=path+horse=designated+bicycle=yes+foot=yes is in some countries equivalent to highway=bridleway

access=designated indicates that a route has been specially designated (typically by a government) for use by a particular mode (or modes) of transport. The specific meaning varies according to jurisdiction. It may imply extra usage rights for the given mode of transport, or may be just a suggested route.

Examples

A path for bicycles, horses, snowmobiles, and cross-country skiing could be tagged as:

• highway=path
• bicycle=designated
• horse=designated
• snowmobile=designated
• ski=designated

A UK bridleway could be tagged as:

• highway=path
• horse=designated
• foot=yes
• bicycle=yes

A UK "restricted byway" could be tagged as:

• highway=track
• motorcar=no

This last is not related to this proposal, but is brought up because it was for some reason mentioned in the comments on the previous version.

See some examples with pictures.

Deprecates

As an option, the following highway values may be deprecated (not depreciated!). When this proposal comes to a vote, please also indicate whether you would approve deprecation of these values as well as adding the other new values. Deprecation means that they would be discouraged from future use. In no way does it imply that they would be forbidden, nor would they be removed from the existing database or renderers (until such time as they are no longer in use).

highway=cycleway

highway=bridleway

highway=footway

Note: The option to deprecate these tags has been refused by the majority (see below).

Rendering

This should probably be rendered similar to current highway=footway/cycleway/bridleway with color depending on the allowed usage.

Comments

Please use the talk page.

Voting

Please read the talk page before voting.

• I approve this proposal. I also approve deprecation of the values listed in the Deprecation section. --Hawke 16:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I also approve deprecation of the values listed in the Deprecation section. --Cbm 16:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Even though I've tagged some less-than-footways with highway=path. And I'd prefer designation=.... I'm not voting on the Deprecation part. Robx 17:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I also explicitly approve the "designated" value and the deprecations. I do oppose deprecation, instead I'd like to see a clearly defined translation between the footway/cycleway values and the proposed scheme. --Tordanik 17:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. for highway=path. But I heavily oppose deprecation of footway/cycleway/bridleway and highway=path should not replace them either. I also oppose the access=designated tag, a path either allows certain transport types or not, it's not like there are grades in access rights. --Eimai 16:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. But I oppose the deprecation of footway/cycleway/bridleway. --SlowRider 17:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I also approve deprecation of the values listed in the Deprecation section. However, I oppose defaulting to "allow emergency vehicles" since in most cases the path probably isn't wide enough. -- Steve Hill 19:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I tentatively approve this proposal.. I heavily oppose any deprecation of footway/bridleway etc. My personal opinion is that something like "path" can be used if it isn't at all clear on the ground who can use it, or whether it's a right of way at all. Rather than using highway=path + xyz=designated, we should continue to use footway, bridleway, byway etc. if it's clear what the status of the path really is. I'm also going to oppose the designated thingy. If a path is legally designated as a footpath, it should be "highway=footway", not "highway=path". Richard B 21:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I don't care about this proposal, but I heavily oppose deprecation of footway/cycleway/bridleway. --Cartinus 21:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. OSM tagging is becoming too unstable. --alastairj 00:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. However I oppose the deprecation of the existing tags. Franc 01:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I would not mind the existing tags being deprecated, but for practical reasons would prefer keeping them as shortcuts with defined values. I would prefer designation=... than adding <bike|car|foot>=designated
• I approve this proposal. on adding the values path and designated, and oppose deprecating footway etc. Alv 12:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. for the highway=path and designated to deal with multi-purpose ways, but I oppose depracating highway=footway/cycleway/... because I am lazy, and so are many others. So I'll keep taging a footway with one only tag instead of saying it's a path designated for walking Sletuffe 14:58, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve highway=path. it is useful as a last resort. I strongly oppose deprecation of the much more useful footway, byway, cycleway,bridalway etc which this must not replace. The designation stuff is poor and I oppose it. Chillly 16:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. --spaetz 17:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Changed my mind , path would be perfect for some foot version of the 'track' tag but this proposition just add complexity to allready existing tags --PhilippeP 18:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal.. Deprecation isn't necessary if the equivalencies above are added to the wikipages of footway, cycleway and bridleway. --PetskuH 19:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I oppose the deprecation of the existing tags. Socks 12:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I also approve deprecation of the values listed in the Deprecation section. --Colin Marquardt 12:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I see no value in adding a generic path tag, I Strongly oppose depracating of highway=footway/cycleway/... Rene A 16:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I oppose deprecation of existing values (because they are handy shortcuts for manual edits). Vrabcak 05:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. ...and the deprecation of footway/bridleway. The suggested scheme is much more logical and less ambiguous. On reflection, maybe "designated" for official, legally-enshrined rights is a good idea, following suggestions on the mailing list. *However*, I do want to make clear that the suggested tagging for a bridleway is incorrect in the UK. It should be foot=designated; horse=designated; bicycle=designated as they *all* have official and equal rights. --Nickw 08:46, 20 May 2008 (BST)

Except that cycles have to give way to the other two modes IIRC Richard B

• I oppose this proposal. because I oppose deprecation of the (widely used) footway/cycleway and find it a bad idea to have two equivalent ways to tag the same information. I don't care about designated. Gustavf 21:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• I'm neutral on highway=path but oppose deprecation of the existing tags. I'm very strongly of the view, however, that rather than "foot=designated", "horse=designated" and so on, we should have "designation=bridleway", "designation=footpath", "designation=Restricted Byway" and so on - an official status such as 'bridleway' will typically imply so much more than can be expressed in a binary form as proposed above. ---Richard 14:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Or perhaps even, "highway=footpath", "highway=bridleway" etc. ... I agree that some of these designations can imply much more - and we'd often need a host of these tags to describe the same things. E.g. should we be replacing "highway=motorway" with <"highway=road, car=yes, hgv=yes, pcv=yes, tractor=no, learner_car=no, learner_hgv=yes, horse=no, foot=no, bicycle=no, stopping=no maxspeed:car=113, maxspeed:hgv=97"> etc. etc. Richard B 15:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This is country specific. In Finland a motorway doesn't have a maxspeed of 113. It's either 100 or 120 (and lowered in the winter time). And we don't have learner drivers. --PetskuH 22:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

PetskuH - I think Richard B was making a hypothetical point :) . Richard - Agreed, but it would also be helpful to be able to record country-specific designations (e.g. Restricted Byway) over and above the highway tag. --Richard 12:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. I oppose deprecation of existing values. highway=footway|cycloway|briddleway should be kept as shortcuts for designated ways. --Jttt 06:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. According to the given examples-page, this make things much more complicated and gives no real benefits. Bwurst 07:45, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Because Garminmaps created with mkgmap get more problems to map these values to different IDs
• I oppose this proposal. this is way too complex to be usable. --LH 10:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I can see the real andvantage, but i can see things getting more complicated. I think the existing highway tags suffice. --Patzi 10:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. But I oppose the deprecation of existing tags. --Ckruetze 11:36, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I can see the real andvantage, but i can see things getting more complicated. I think the existing highway tags suffice. --Thomas1904 19:06, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• I don't care about this proposal, but I oppose deprecation of footway/cycleway/bridleway. I also oppose designated in the access key because a designated path could be private, permissive or public access. --Thewinch 16:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I also approve the 'designated' stuff and the deprecation of the values listed in the Deprecation section. --Chrischan 21:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Voting summary

This voting has quite many options, so a table of the votes might help assessing the result. Some have given an empty vote on some parts of this proposal, so the column sums might not be equal. Below is the count as of 23:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC) and it will be updated regularly until the end of the two week voting period, (end of 2008-05-29). Current number of counted votes is 34.

Counted votes: 34	Approve	Oppose	Abstain	Line total
Highway=path	22	9	3	34
*=designated:	19	13	2	34
Deprecation	6	26	2	34