[Tagging] Use of highway=track vs highway=service cemeteries, parks, allotment gardens, golf courses, and recreation areas

[stevea]

On Feb 25, 2021, at 9:48 AM, Joseph Eisenberg <joseph.eisenberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it appropriate to use highway=track for minor access ways in ... golf courses?
> 
> One question that is not clear globally is if use of highway=track for minor access ways in ... golf courses is correct as similar to agricultural, forestry and recreational use, or if it is more appropriate to use highway=service.
> 
> It seems this is done commonly in parts of the USA and I've seen it in Poland and some places in Germany too, but there also seem to be mappers who consider it incorrect tagging.

I do recall (2 to 3 months ago?) that in one of the talk / discussion mailing lists there was some discussion about "golf carts" and this might have included the paths they use around golf courses.  Sorry, I don't recall specifically.

As an aside, my personal preference is to use highway=service for these sorts of "golf cart paths," which are often wider than a path, though maybe not quite as wide as a "double-track" (full-sized-lane) road.

Again as my (USA-parochial) perspective found especially the distinction of "highway=service, paved" and "highway=track, unpaved" to be quite vivid, my tendency to all of the use cases listed in the Subject is towards highway=service on these, as they are usually paved. If they were unpaved in specific cases (some, indeed, are) I would choose to tag them as highway=track.  Again, this tendency of mine (but I suspect many others in the USA and perhaps wider) towards "paved, service" and "unpaved, track" feels to me an older tagging style, one which I now tend to diminish with more precision that includes a surface=* tag.  However, many years (six, eight?) of that style of tagging with no surface=* tag (relying upon now-fading assumptions about service and track being paved and unpaved, respectively) certainly remains in the map, where I usually map (California) and in my experience of looking at other areas of my country in the map, the USA as well.

SteveA