History of proposals to fix highway=path ambiguity – and a wayforward?

[supsup]

@Langlaeufer

you missed the regulated multi-use case (e.g shared foot/cycleway).

No, that was meant to be covered by highway=two_wheel (desperately in need of a better name).

@ezekielf

I agree with @Peter_Elderson that a conservative default assuming a propertyless highway=path is probably a rather rough, undeveloped trail is best.

However, how is that not redefining highway=path, which is a nogo, as this post History of proposals to fix highway=path ambiguity – and a wayforward? - #3 by Langlaeufer and the number of its likes seem to suggest?

@osmuser63783

(@supsup make sure to read the other ones that we recently had on the subject).

Precisely because I read those (and not only) I wrote that post. Though one can hardly ever read enough.

@Woazboat

I’m not sold on highway=pathless being very a useful main tag or improvement over highway=path. It provides very little to no additional information compared to highway=path + trail_visibility=no.

The main benefit would be general-purpose (i.e. not hiking oriented) routers stop sending people to places where majority public does not see anything resembling a way. The purpose would not be to add information but to affect routers, this being a feature and not a bug.

@alan_gr

If it turns out that sac_scale=hiking could apply to any easy path whatsoever, implying that sac_scale=hiking conveys no meaning at all as it’s the same as no sac_scale tag, I think I’ll just give up.

It means it is not anything more difficult than hiking, which is tremendeously useful, actually.

@Minh_Nguyen

I don’t know if anyone ever uses “scramble” as a noun to refer to places where you have to scramble,

People definitely do that. It is even in a dictionnary with that precise usage: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/scramble

@Minh_Nguyen

highway=pathless is an adjective, yet it doesn’t refer to a kind of highway. There’s no such thing as “a pathless”, and it isn’t a pathless road or street. A “pathless path”? That’s an oxymoron! No, it’s a pathless… something. In other words, it’s a not-a-path, a not:highway=path – or even a no:highway=path based on verifiability.

Well, you could have highway=notpath or highway=notapath if you wanted to be language purist, however under your Classification section, you have adjectives so I do not think this is a problem in practice. (Otherwise I think your post is really good and should not just stay burried in the forum).

@Minh_Nguyen

highway=motorcycleway would coin a brand-new word that doesn’t exist in English, “motorcycleway”, to refer to a kind of path, by analogy with cycleway.

This is not really for this thread, but I would like to see some pictures for this to have a better idea what these are. They sound potentially useful though!

@ezekielf

I wonder how you would feel about classifying a trail as one of several types if we had a tag similar to tracktype but for trails/paths

Frankly I think path now is too broad for this to be useful (and it would clash with existing schemes like sac_scale).