[OSM-newbies] highway shapefiles - how to translate road types?

[David ``Smith'']

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Guillaume Mauger <gmauger at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I have a follow-up question to my earlier newbie question regarding getting
> the shapefiles. I now have them (thanks!) and am working on interpreting the
> "highway" (contains all roads) shapefile.
>
> Below is the list of road-types contained in the shapefiles (18 different
> categories in all).
>
> Where can I find information that defines what all of these terms mean?
> Specifically, I just need to know which roads can be driven on, and which
> cannot.

For definitions of these values, see
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway>

Generally, one can drive on all of those except

>     'track'    (may depend on situation)
>     'service'    (may depend on situation; could be a driveway or an alley)
>     'footway'    (almost certainly not car-friendly)
>     'path'    (probably not car-friendly)
>     'Driveway'    (not a standard tag, but chances are it's not a public road)
>     'pedestrian'    (almost certainly not car-friendly)
>     'road'    (depends on situation, but probably no further information can be found in the data)

For those which I've said depend on the situation, check for other
attributes in your shapefile.  If there's an "access" attribute that
says "no" or "private", then you probably don't want to consider it as
driveable.

-- 
David "Smith"
a.k.a. Vid the Kid
a.k.a. Bír'd'in

Does this font make me look fat?