[Tagging] Service=* used for highways and railways

[John Smith]

On 28 July 2010 17:25, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> For some reason it completely escaped me that service=* is supposed to
> be used for both railways (eg, service=spur) and roads
> (service=alley). I don't really want to debate this situation with a
> view to changing it, but could someone give me a quick explanation on
> how this arose? It seems a little odd, and somewhat confusing, to me.

It's only confusing if viewed without other tags for context...

highway=service and railway=service etc, would give you the context
needed then anything else just gives you more details about what type
of service way...