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

[Bert -Araali- Van Opstal]

there were indeed voices that preferred highway=residential, but it has 
only disadvantages. :)
People expect from a residential road that they can drive on it with 
their car, also these narrow alleys are typically not the only kind of 
roads in these centers, and it made a lot of sense to have a different 
tag in order to see the difference on the map, avoid routers sending 
people into these roads etc.

I understand. But as I understand they do support other vehicle 
transport like motorbikes and bicycles, modes of transport which get 
more and more promoted and supported by legally enforced access 
restrictions (with traffic_signs), even on wider roads.  It looks weird 
to me to use a highway=service tag for that purpose, that's why here we 
look at the highway=service tag as being generally used for roads that 
have no specific general "public" character, a tag that has service=* 
values that mostly describe a certain use or purpose, not covered by the 
other highway=* tags. I know, people already pointed me out that is also 
not the correct interpretation as it was intended, but maybe that has 
grown historically a bit out of order due to reluctance to add a new or 
attribution to the already existing highway tags ?
That's why we locally tend to map these as residential roads. Recently, 
we started to use the narrow=* key together with width=* to provide data 
for such "alleys",  We also had a group which liked to prefer to use the 
access keys to tag not only legally enforced access but also physically 
"enforced" access. Is that practised the same way elsewhere in the world ?
It would make it easier also for routing software in my opinion, 
especially for motorists and cyclists, they should look at the physical 
highway keys. Anyway, my perception is that we don't tag for a specific 
data use or rendering.

We have these also, and I think you find them across the world mostly in 
historical cities. But how do you distinguish the alleys which are 
accessible for the general public, and not clearly signposted as such, 
and the ones that have a private use only because they give access to 
just a single house. F.i. we have many alleys in towns but they are not 
intended for public use, they pass at the back side of building rows. 
They are not intended for "public" use but to allow people to access 
their homes from behind.  SO we map them as highway=service.  People do 
use them as passages, especially pedestrians, because the main roads get 
to congested and become dangerous because of misbehaviour of motorists, 
like driving on the footways.  We look at it though as non-legal 
behaviour which we don't tag, so we don't tag them as residential roads 
but as service roads.  They would however perfectly classify as alleys. 
As long as someone doesn't put a barrier or a clear signpost that a road 
is private, we consider all roads as publicly accessible. No publicly 
accessible highway has a specific highway=service tag.

Greetings,

Bert Araali

On 27/02/2021 10:58, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
>
>
> sent from a phone
>
>> On 27 Feb 2021, at 01:19, Bert -Araali- Van Opstal 
>> <bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Was there a specific reason to create highway=alley?  Why aren't 
>> these considered as residential roads, just narrow ones.
>
> there were indeed voices that preferred highway=residential, but it 
> has only disadvantages. :)
> People expect from a residential road that they can drive on it with 
> their car, also these narrow alleys are typically not the only kind of 
> roads in these centers, and it made a lot of sense to have a different 
> tag in order to see the difference on the map, avoid routers sending 
> people into these roads etc.
>
> Would you call this a residential road?
> https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicolo_Baciafemmine.jpg 
> <https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicolo_Baciafemmine.jpg>
In our perception this would be a path, a footway. Because except if you 
are a stuntman you can't ride here, even not on a bicycle or a 
motorbike, defintively only for pedestrains.
> or this?
> https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicolo_Benci_(Montepulciano)_04.jpg 
> <https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicolo_Benci_(Montepulciano)_04.jpg>
> this
A skilled bicycle rider or motorist can take that single step.  So we 
would us residential, add narrow and width keys to it, and most of all 
clearly tag it as a building passage.  Height key also useful, all 
physical keys but it still remains a residential road, it's purpose is 
to take people from house A to House B... and it's intended for public use.
> https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amelia_vicolo.JPG 
> <https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amelia_vicolo.JPG>
> etc
Thats a path, a footway due to the presence of the steps.
>
> Cheers Martin
>
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