Heute in der Zeitung, pardon dem Fernsehen:

Forststraßen länger als Straßennetz

Österreichs Forststraßen übertreffen mit einer Länge von 218.000 Kilometern das Straßennetz bei Weitem, das gerade einmal auf 127.000 Kilometer kommt.

Quelle: https://science.orf.at/stories/3223067/ - dort auch historische Dimension beleuchtet.

In July I did revert a bunch of really sloppy edits by a power mapper. He returned under a different nick and reverted my revert, saying I have to be more careful, there is good stuff also. In his revert, he again removed houses that obviously were not on his outdated aerial, so much for lacking care.

Meanwhile a DWG member reverted this and lots of other changesets of this picky power mapper. I guess, for the hdyc algorithm these are two separate reverts? I learned to live with 1.3% of all the changes in my whole career being reverted ;) I just hope this number will not get used against me.

Does that happen more often, enough to skew statistics?

The missing GPS data - only your own single capture eg. - use of strava heatmap can help a lot! Coverage is really good. More info in this community forum topic https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/new-strava-heatmap-extension-for-id/100544 - Then there are also the OSM own tracks, but there are not so many.

It would be much easier today, if hedgerows were mapped as barrier=hedgerow on a line, and thick hedges as barrier=hedge on a closed way meant to represent an area. Yet, that ship has sailed.

Nowadays, new tagging has a steep barrier to entry. The OSM-Carto issue on that is just bagatelle.

Overpass length() seems fairly accurate. The two courts linked above output 110.079;110.175:

[out:csv(number,length)];
( way(id:788871677,1029667455); );
make stat number=count(ways),length=set(length());
out;

This slightly differs from what JOSM gives, but negligible for our purposes. Curiously, JOSM disregards projection when copy/pasting one to the place of the other - the difference is staggering.

Around here https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/678206560 maps 9 courts as a single pitch and the mapper commented the changeset “micromapping sports” ;)

PS: Beware when counting: Doubling length of the outline makes the area fit 3+ courts. 370m circumference, only three times 110, fits 9 courts and the space between.

The biggest promise in mapping sidewalks as separate ways is, that businesses can make a so-called pedestrian router that is just a copy of their car router, but operates on a different grid. The ones to gain the most are people in mobility scooters, a car-like vehicle. The visually impaired here do not use any navigation aids, it so, they use google maps. They know about blind-square. In my opinion, the blind should be the ones to profit the most from a true pedestrian router. That though requires more than just a separately mapped grid - one for pedestrian, one for vehicles. Unfortunately, there is not much money to be made from them.

Noch eine Zahl zu den Forstwegen, für die bicycle:conditional=Yes @ (Apr - Oct) gilt - durchs Hintertürl gesehen sind es einmal sicher so um die Drei, Vier- von den 18 Tausend km, wenn man alle in Openstreetmap erfassten MTB-Routen darauf hin anschaut, wo sie über tracks führen - siehe https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1qHW gibt aktuell 3030 aus - und das mapping ist nicht ganz vollständig

It is not that much different here in Tyrol (Austria). Administrative data by the BEV (the local OS) contains both outdated and plain rubbish pathways, all the wile being quite precise on what is there most often. At times, some of the paths they map have special appeal in rare occurrences, because local law does not allow to create new paths, but allows grooming paths existing on paper.

Manchmal dauert es, bis dass der Groschen fällt: Nach dem Beitrag hier aber darf nicht verwundern, warum in Tirol – im Unterschied zu Ober- oder Niederösterreich laut Forum topic Anekdoten – so viel Fahrverbote ausgeschildert sind - Weil 80% der tracks Forstwege sind, und von diesen das Forstgesetz es so verlangt! Auf dass über allen Wipfeln sei Ruh? Was so beobachtet werden kann verlängert sich die Praxis nahtlos auf Feldwege …

I am still fond of this comment on the tagging ML, https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2022-September/065518.html - The interesting content is below the fold ;)

Hallo Arminus, das ist wohl wahr! Die Zeichenkette heißt ja auch “day”, weil sie einen Tag will :) In der regex muss dann der Tag optional werden, und in Folge ein Tag eingesetzt werden, wo der fehlt. Ich werde das gleich oben ändern.

PS: Du mappst ja selber Steige und bereitest Daten für Karten auf? Fällt dir dazu etwas ein - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/highway=scramble - ich will das bald zur Abstimmung bringen und bin über jeden Rat froh.

Late Update: The data - http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1ell, The consumer (xctrails) already used Simon’s Lexxer/Parser on the server, before I wrote my exercise, but the work still was not in vain ;)

StreetComplete is a very valuable tool to enter immediate observations on the ground. Still, please do no oversimplify use cases:

I guess that sidewalk=no, cycleway:both=no, noname=yes, lit=no also belong here.

Tagging a residential road sidewalk=no gives valuable information, while on a motorway it is redundant. cycleway:both=no a bit less so, because a cycleway is not so common as a sidewalk. Such issues are best handled on the SC tracker. Some heuristics may need some polish.

SC needs to grow user base a lot, if it was to replace work done on the desktop. Please think twice before gamification - something that applies to desktop editors just the same - ticking off validator suggestions blindly should not give users Bonus points.

Cool, A real parser in the .jj file. I guess from coercing openstreetmap restrictions into BNF or some such formalism, a number of proposals can spring from. Sadly my mind has deteriorated too much to be on any help, since writing a Bison parser for something much more simple years ago; and even then… Still, there are lots of smart people! Writing down the grammar might be a “good first issue” :)

Hello SK: Early autumn, I was in the Karwendel, paying visit to friends that herd some cows there, with a hotel-hut close to the Alm; I had dinner in the touristic hut. I like to ask people, to let me have a glimpse on their Navi. I found maps.me does a good job at rendering “trail_visibility” - A value of “no” makes a path nearly invisible on the map. Of course, thats the one I chose earlier that day. In fact, there was no path, a pleasant hike over grassy slopes up to a summit, that once had a bicycle as a cross mark. I was the only one there, caravans went to the prominent summits that day. After dinner, the host advised people, to go to the second prominent summit then, because of snow fields on the most prominent one. The photos he showed, did not show anything difficult. I tried to pith the other summit as truly easy, he just said, 10 per year go there, nothing further. The next morning I went examining another “mysterious” OSM “path”; Again, a very interesting hike, mostly along a pressurized water pipeline; I had to delete a part of this path, because it created a routable connection, even though no signs on the ground showed actual use as such shortcut there. On the retour, I went the touristic path, which features some assisted passages; The next day, a person fell to death on this one. I remember, reminding myself to be careful in the very location, but I never had thought, that it was about life or death. In English, its called accident, in German its called Unfall, both means, German maybe a bit more concise, what one is not expecting to see happening. Otherwise, it probably would not happen.

Hello SK, I am not the least that familiar with Swiss customs as you are, being from a neighboring country, where trails are graded like skiing pistes: blue, red and black. I like it, that openstreetmap has all the paths, that disappear from commercial maps, with each new edition the more. Mostly, they are not fashionable either, so one can hike them in splendid isolation, so to say. I sometimes delete ones, that are obviously wishful thinking or plain misinterpretations of the aerial. I also like to remove sac_scale tags from ‘informal’ paths, not the least, because those tags make them more prominent on OSM derived hiking maps ;) Actually, I am less concerned about dangerous trails being mapped, than about users, who delete paths, because they are dangerous in their mind or give ridiculous sac_scale values, just to make graphhopper not route there. When a hiking accident makes it into the news, my first is, to look what OSM has there. Over the years, I learned of a prominent case, where the “Bergretttung” had to engage for at least two times, where nothing was in OSM, while google maps was the “Navi”. I learned of fatalities, among many, on paths, that are in the official state map too and once on a path, that is a bit en vogue, got covered by many blog articles and is in all the basic hiking guides. The last one surely classifies as T6, in the meaning, WS climbing, no possibilities for securing. The entry is two to three hours uphill walk from the bus stop or car parking. So I do not consider this a danger to the public ;)

Let me first point at a misunderstanding in the first paragraph: That there are different scales, a hiking scale and a climbing scale, does not mean, that one starts, where the other ends. It is mentioned in the SAC document, that T6-hiking may comprise WS-climbing, but without the possibilty of securing by rope. The grading document further says, that it is meant to describe the difficulty in optimal conditions, i.e. fine wheather, on dry ground, suitable snow-cover, etc.

This is not to say, that there are trails in the OSM data, that are beyond SAC difficult alpine hiking, and consequently, must not be mapped as a path. So ZS climbing is out of scope, as well as UIAAIII. I find it interesting, that by omitting the “hw=path” tag, the trails can be kept, but hidden from display in OSM-Carto. Is there a tag, that may show them on special “climbing” maps?

SwissTopo has an overlay at https://map.geo.admin.ch/?layers=ch.swisstopo.swisstlm3d-wanderwege that shows all the signed hiking trails. You will get to see the very nice hill-shading in close zoom :) You will notice, that there are not that many blue ones. I looked up “Niesengrat” from the search box, because this is mentioned as a sample for T6 difficulty. There is no trail shown in the Swisstopo overlay to the Fromberghore. That may explain, why there are so few blue trails to be seen. I guess, that is because the demanding and difficult alpine trails are not signed.

Hmm, das schweift vom Thema das Blogposts ab. Nach dem was mir oben so durch den Kopf ging finde ich nun den source Tag nicht den passenden Ort, die Chronik zu duplizieren.

Im Blogpost geht es vielmehr darum, dass manchmal in Foren behauptet wird, das Luftbild müsse als source am Objekt angeführt werden (das würde dann auch einzelne Bäume, Sitzbänke usw. betreffen), um dessen CC-BY Lizenz zu erfüllen, und warum dem meiner Ansicht nach nicht so ist.

Dass das source Tag als veraltet angesehen wird, scheint genau in dieselbe Richtung zu deuten :)

Die verbreitetsten Editoren machen das eh schon von selbst so, dass die eingeblendeten Luftbilder im Changeset angeführt werden. JOSM verwendet “source”, iD und weitere “imagery_used”. Die Frage bringt mich aber auf eine Idee.

Ein Mapper in der Gegend hier zeichnet sehr oft Straßen schön, so dass Kurven auch in zoom 19 noch Kurven sind. Er setzt an den Weg dann ein source mit Luftbildquelle + und + Jahr des Luftbilds. Der Vorteil davon ist, dass man nicht die Chronik aufschlagen muss um herauszufinden, wo ein Versatz herkommt, oder der Verlauf nicht mit dem übereinstimmt, was man im eigenen Luftbild sieht.

Von daher könnte die Praxis Sinn machen. Es wird aber bald kompliziert: Wenn ich an einem Detail was ändere, was dann: Die Quelle ersetzen oder eine zweite anhängen? Was ich so beobachte, passiert das nicht. Eher bleibt die “source” länger kleben als etwas von ihr noch da ist.

This updated and a followup too, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Hungerburg/diary/396451 presenting, below the fold, results of laymen research into local forestry regulations.