[Tagging] shared driveways (was How to tag un-named roundabout?)

[Anthony]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Greg Troxel <gdt at ir.bbn.com> wrote:
> Anthony <osm at inbox.org> writes:
>> But I've come across situations where the unnamed road is not a
>> roundabout, though.  In one of these cases I used
>> highway=unclassified, because it was just a dirt road that was really
>> just a shared driveway (it was imported from TIGER because it used to
>> be a real road).
>
> here, the question is the road's legal status.  If it's a private or
> public way going to houses, it would be highway=residential.  If it's
> really a driveway legally now, highway=service service=driveway, or
> highway=track if it's really atrocious.  MassGIS data has a lot of
> driveways showing up as ways that got mapped to residential, and I've
> been fixing them in my town.

What's the legal distinction between a "private way going to houses"
and a "shared driveway"?  The road in question is definitely private -
if the shared owners want to put up a gate and restrict access to the
way, they have every right to do so.  So I'd say it's *both* a
"private way going to houses" *and* a "shared driveway".

Another situation which I run into more often is the case of a private
road owned by a condominium association (or mobile home park), or by
an apartment complex.  Should these be tagged as something other than
highway=residential?  I've always reserved highway=service for
non-residential roads.  I now see on the wiki that highway=service can
also be used with service=driveway, but what's the distinction between
a driveway and a private road owned by a condominium association or an
apartment complex?  One distinction is whether or not the way is
shared, but then a shared driveway is shared as well.

Cross-posting to talk-us, this might be a US-specific issue.