Talk:Tag:canoe=portage

canoe=portage on nodes at portage to waterway connections

I propose to replace the following verbiage:

 When joining a highway=* to waterway=* for a portage, add canoe=portage to the node where they join, so it is clear that this is not a mapping mistake (as some validators might assume), but a point where land based transport becomes water based transport and vice versa

With

 When joining a highway=* to a waterway=* or natural=water for a portage, add tags indicating canoes can put in/take out at this location such as waterway=access_point + canoe=yes.  This makes it clear that this is not a mapping mistake, but a point where land based transport becomes water based transport and vice versa.

for the following reasons

1. Ambiguity for data consumers canoe=portage as described today has two, contradictory meanings. If it's used with waterway=* it means "you CANNOT canoe here" (effectively canoe=no). If used with highway=*, it means "yes, you CAN portage your canoe here." As a data consumer, a node tagged canoe=portage attached to a waterway=* and a highway=* is extremely difficult to interpret. So it's better if we can propose an unambiguous tag for the same purpose.
2. There are better tags Since this was written, many tags that better describe a place to put in/take out your canoe for a portage have been developed. So we have a ready substitute for this tag that is already in use and used by data consumers.
3. It does not have widespread support canoe=portage is used on less than < 100 node globally whereas there are > 12000 instances of waterway=access_point (just to pick on example). So it is not well adopted by mappers. Additionally, I could find not find any data consumers that are interpreting this meaning of the tag. Therefore changing this advice does not meaningfully remove information from consumers. To the contrary, as the replacement tags are better supported this will increase the information to consumers.

Scarapella (talk) 12:04, 16 August 2026 (UTC)