[Tagging] [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Carto release v4.25.0

[Andy Townsend]

On 05/02/2020 19:17, Christoph Hormann wrote:
> - in other words: Special casing exactly the situation in question to
> be treated as an exception.

Hedges historically were treated as areas if appropriate, whereas other 
barriers were not.

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/0fac157a650b25844806f3f49fc65432751da38d/landcover.mss#L710

is from a couple of years ago.  I'm not sure when OSM Carto changed its 
mind on them - I must have missed the memo.

You could perhaps ask "why were hedges special-cased in the first 
place", but the answer's pretty obvious - a hedge more often has a 
significant mappable width than a fence.

What would help make the data clearer (regardless of this discussion).  
For example, https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/QqU is where the same object is 
used to represent both an amenity and a hedge in most of England and 
Wales.  There are only 12 polygons in that list - not beyond the bounds 
of manual fixing.  A similar query covering most of The Netherlands 
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/QqV gets only 2 polygons.  Looking for 
combinations of "landuse" will get more, but not that many more: 44  
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/QqW .

Once the small amount of double-tagged data is fixed, OSM Carto will be 
free to represent hedges as mappers had always intended.

Best Regards,

Andy