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

[stevea]

On Feb 27, 2021, at 3:15 AM, Bert -Araali- Van Opstal <bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand.
then stated what he understood to be a "wide interpretation" of "supporting other vehicle transport" (transport modes like motorbike) which "get" more and more promoted and supported by access restrictions.

Hi Bert:  See, there are a number of suppositions, assumptions, easy-to-make wide interpretations...we might as well call such things "potential traps to fall into."  Some do fall into them.  One supposition is that "these 'get' more and more promoted..." yet they haven't been (yet).  OSM wants to map what is today, not what might be tomorrow.  (Though, there are smeary cases like "proposed" I won't get into here).  This is why Bert was answered "well, use access=* on these when warranted."  That's correct.  You might also use other tags that characterize or restrict mode-of-transport (hgv, motorbike, emergency_vehicle, tuk-tuk, dismounted-bicyclist-as-pedestrian-walking-her-bike...).  But, these are not "built into" assumptions or interpretations of highway=service.  It's easy to do so.  But, please don't.

> 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 ?

Yes, Bert, not only for this/these tags we're talking about (blurs between highway=track and highway=service), but for others as well.  Especially as there have been "old school" (legacy) ways of tagging that have changed over the years as newer tags / newer tagging schemes have evolved.  Look, we still have plenty of Public Transport v1 (PTv1) routes, when PTv2 has been around for many years.  (And thank you to all who improve to PTv2 or even enter directly into PTv2, skipping v1).  There is history / legacy, there are assumptions, interpretations, even persistent misunderstandings.  It can take years to clean up what started as a simple, minor misunderstanding.  This usually starts with the identification of a some confusion between syntax (tagging) and semantics (the meaning of the data in the map).  I'm identifying that there are many of these, they happen often enough that they ought to have their own sub-genre of ontology, we talk about and around them here, but we seldom directly talk about this basic fact going on in OSM.  This thread is a good example of this:  long, multi-headed like a hydra and swarming with many voices and edges of understanding that often threaten to bleed into hostility or "I'm right, you're wrong" kinds of devolution.  Let's not do that.  Let's be OK with people saying, "hm, we disagree, can we see where and maybe how and not necessarily why but rather tease it apart with consensus we've already established and perhaps a bit more?"  That's called forward motion and OSM frequently has it, but it takes dialog and listening and work.

> That's why we locally tend to map these as residential roads.

And identifying the "why" is often quite helpful, especially when we know it!  Knowing why often lets us demystify, unconfuse or simply demolishes misunderstanding.  Sometimes, that's not enough, though, eventually we might reach a harmony where everybody agrees that one method is right everywhere (ideal).  Sometimes, we recognize that "it's done like A here and it's done like B there" (not ideal, but a pragmatic method to cope with millions of us mapping a fair-sized planet — while we wiki-document how).

> 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 ?

I dislike sounding like I'm "punting away" here, but "that's going to be a complicated answer to what appears to be a short question."  (There are lots of these in OSM).  I don't want to discourage you asking, that's a good thing to do here and people can often help as you do so.  To really know, digging into OSM's data with query tools like Overpass Turbo can go a long way to provide the data you seek, then you can sift, sort and make sense of "some answers," which is good old-fashioned data analysis, like any enormous database (like OSM) has happen to it (and we're glad it does).  Note I didn't say "the answer" because it's not always clear that there is such a thing as a single correct answer.  The process, the data, the results, what you do with them:  these really can be (on OSM's scale they often are) quite complex.  Many people are involved, many legacies, many local / regional differences, many existing toolchains like tagging-rendering pipelines might be considered.

> 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. 

Yes, here is a core assumption of this whole discussion, really:  "physical highway keys" (are "a thing," are "these things...").  It appears Bert contradicts himself here.  ("No harm" meant, mate, but as to "no foul," well, I can't say that).  Maybe "slight foul" (yellow card?!) stating that your "perception is that we don't tag for a specific data use or rendering" while earlier (right up in this message) stating that "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."  Yes, that IS "not the correct interpretation as it was intended."  So, "yellow card."  (I like your posts here a lot, Bert, please don't think I'm slapping you when I'm simply offering you an opportunity to see and perhaps unravel where logic might short-circuit — it happens).  So, yes, use the eraser on that assumption and blow away the crumbs, that's why there are erasers on pencils.  You do get it mostly correct when you say "grown historically out of order" (maybe due to, maybe not) because of "changes over time" to "reluctance to add a new or attribution to the already existing highway tags."  It is precisely those "changes over time" processes that millions of us do in hundreds or even thousands of different ways sometimes that gives rise to these issues.  It's pretty complicated, because so are people's understandings AND minor misunderstandings often because of assumptions and interpretations.  See?  Now we go from square one to square two:  identifying that there IS a problem, and maybe even why.  What to do about it are squares two, three and beyond.

You then asked specific questions about alleys I don't answer here and now.  That's because this is long and deep enough.

Sometimes, strategy involves looking at a bigger picture (occasionally in painstaking, pedantic, patient ways).

SteveA