OpenStreetMap
Hello All OpenStreet Mappers
As a person involved in Equestrian (Horse) Activites , I travel down bridleways quite often , And trying to locate them on a map is useless ..... Unless you use ordanance survey , But trying to get a mobile phone mapping solution using ordanance survey layers (Free Of Charge is Slim) , I have been doing some work in the area i live in and improved some of the roads in this area , Now i noticed when i was doing some work , An option for "Bridleway" , If there are any people out there who use bridleways or live near some , Please start putting them on the map , So Openstreetmap is used by alot more people , and make the Openstreet map community more accurate and try and compete against google and all the rest who are mapping experts ...
Discussion
Comment from JohnSmith on 24 August 2009 at 15:03
Things like bridleways aren't on any maps in Australia that I know of, except for perhaps specialist trail maps but they only cover limited areas per map, not the entire world of all horse riding areas and this is where OSM can excel, specialist maps for specialist uses.
This is where google and other map providers will falter, they can't be all things to all people if all they produce is pictures of maps.
Comment from David Martin on 24 August 2009 at 15:27
There are issues with labelling paths as bridleways in Scotland following the Land Reform Act. They should be labelled as paths, trails or some such, then add horse into the metadata for access as to label it as a bridleway implies only equestrian access permitted (which is usually not the case).
Check the Scottish 'Paths for ALl' website for more details.
Comment from marscot on 25 August 2009 at 06:43
yeah I am adding the horse=yes/no tag to my edits past and present :)
Comment from POHB on 25 August 2009 at 09:35
Seconded from an off-road cyclist. Google doesn't bother much with routes you can't get a car down. OSM has the potential to produce really good maps for mountain bikers where the bike-legal trails are clearly distinct from footpaths.
Comment from Vclaw on 25 August 2009 at 18:15
You can also use the "designation" tag for official rights of way (in England and Wales).
eg designation=public_bridleway or designation=public_footpath etc
See osm.wiki/Proposed_features/Designation
Comment from ottokar55 on 27 August 2009 at 14:35
There is a riding and hiking map for central europe (germany).
http://topo.geofabrik.de/
It's still in the beginning, don't expect too much.
As from my experience well used bridleways are not usable for hiking and biking (surface is sand in my area, so the ways are easily worn off) I do set the bridleway tag on official horse trails and sometimes even unofficial ones.