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A coloured dashed line on a British map, marking a class of right of way.
Also known as: Footpath line, Right of way symbol, Green dashed line
Ordnance Survey maps mark rights of way with coloured dashed lines whose pattern and colour give the class: short green dashes for a public footpath, longer green dashes for a bridleway, and further patterns for restricted byways and byways open to all traffic. The colour differs by map series — green on the 1:25,000 Explorer and pink or red on the 1:50,000 Landranger — which is the trap. A path drawn in black is a track that exists on the ground and carries no right of access at all.
Marks a legal right of way and its class by the pattern of the dashes, which is a statement about access rather than about whether a path is visible on the ground.
England and Wales · Contexts: Navigation, Maps
Changes colour between map series — one colour on the 1:25,000 sheets and another on the 1:50,000 — so a walker who has learnt one series and picks up the other will misread the key.
United Kingdom · Contexts: Navigation, Maps
Is not the same as a black-drawn track. A track in black exists physically and carries no right of access; a right of way drawn in colour may be legally open and completely invisible on the ground.
Contexts: Navigation, Maps
A line of short evenly spaced dashes printed in colour across a map, distinguished from neighbouring lines by the length and spacing of the dashes.
The map line and the arrow on the post describe the same legal class.