[talk-au] highway=track update

Michael Collinson mike at ayeltd.biz
Tue Feb 23 09:30:51 UTC 2021


I don't map much in the US but do in Australia and Sweden. In both 
countries, I have rarely come across what I consider to be gravel roads, 
instead consider most unpaved roads and tracks to be 'dirt' or 'compacted':

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:surface%3Dcompacted

Apropos the current discussion, I wonder what other mappers think? 
Especially if you have any road engineering background in Australia. I'd 
like to fall in with a consensus.

Background: I mostly look at tracks/roads as a cyclist. If my tyre is 
mostly resting on small stones of various sizes, then it is gravel and 
riding is generally tough with tendency to skitter. If my tyre is 
resting mostly on (often rollered) dirt with usually embedded very small 
stones  for cohesion and traction, then I am on a compacted surface and 
riding is much easier. Here in Sweden, almost all unpaved public and 
residential roads are the latter as are many logging and farm tracks. A 
half-decent compacted surface can often be car driven at 70 kmph, not 
something I'd fancy on a gravel road.

I could have sworn there was a good Wikipedia page on compacted road 
surfaces but I cannot find it now or anything similar, perhaps called 
something else. It is a deliberate technique that goes back to Roman 
times, (perhaps there are some in Waga Waga :-) ).

Mike

On 2021-02-23 07:22, Josh Marshall wrote:
>
>     The approved OSM tag for surface=gravel
>     <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface> refers to
>     railway ballast, not the fine crushed rock or natural surface that
>     usually occurs on unpaved roads in Australia. However we call the
>     fine unpaved surface "gravel" in common parlance, and many unpaved
>     roads that don't constitute gravel as described in the OSM wiki
>     have been tagged as gravel here, erroneously depending on your
>     point of view.
>
>
> This is a matter of interest to me too. I spend a substantial amount 
> of time running+riding on fire trails in NSW (all highway=track), and 
> the surface type is useful and indeed used in a number of the route 
> planners I use. I have changed a few roads back to 'unpaved' from 
> 'gravel' due to the rule of following the description in the surface= 
> guidelines rather than the name.
>
> My question then however, is exactly what to tag the tracks beyond 
> "unpaved".
>
> There are definitely sections that are somewhat regularly graded and 
> appear to have extra aggregate/fine gravel added. From the surface= 
> wiki, these most closely align with surface=compacted. But fine_gravel 
> is potentially an option too. Many of these are 2wd accessible when it 
> is dry. (Typically smoothness=bad.)
>
> There are also others, usually less travelled, which are bare rock, 
> clay, dirt, sand, whatever was there. Is it best just to leave these 
> as surface=unpaved, and add a smoothness=very_bad or horrible tag? 
> None of the surface= tags really seem to apply.
>
>
> On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 at 16:45, Little Maps <mapslittle at gmail.com 
> <mailto:mapslittle at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Brian and co, in Victoria and southern NSW where I've edited a
>     lot of roads, highway=track is nearly totally confined to dirt
>     roads in forested areas, as described in the Aus tagging
>     guidelines, viz: " highway=track Gravel fire trails, forest
>     drives, 4WD trails and similar roads. Gravel roads connecting
>     towns etc. should be tagged as appropriate (secondary, tertiary or
>     unclassified), along with the surface=unpaved or more specific
>     surface=* tag."
>
>     In your US-chat someone wrote, "...in the USA, "most" roads that
>     "most" people encounter (around here, in my experience, YMMV...)
>     are surface=paved. Gravel or dirt roads are certainly found, but
>     they are less and less common." By contrast, in regional
>     Australia, most small roads are unpaved/dirt/gravel.
>
>     In SE Australia, public roads in agricultural areas that are
>     unpaved/dirt/gravel/etc are usually tagged as highway=unclassified
>     (or tertiary etc), not highway=track. There are some exceptions in
>     some small regions (for example in the Rutherglen area in NE
>     Victoria) where really poor, rough 'double track' tracks on public
>     road easements have systematically been tagged with highway=track
>     rather than highway=unclassified. See here for example:
>     https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/-36.1424/146.3683
>     <https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/-36.1424/146.3683>.
>     However, this is not the norm in SE Australia and across the
>     border in southern NSW, this type of road is nearly always tagged
>     as unclassified, as it is elsewhere in Victoria. In SE Australia,
>     my experience is that tracks are tagged in the more traditional
>     way, and not as has been done in the USA.
>
>     If I could ask you a related question, what do you US mappers call
>     "gravel"? The approved OSM tag for surface=gravel
>     <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface> refers to
>     railway ballast, not the fine crushed rock or natural surface that
>     usually occurs on unpaved roads in Australia. However we call the
>     fine unpaved surface "gravel" in common parlance, and many unpaved
>     roads that don't constitute gravel as described in the OSM wiki
>     have been tagged as gravel here, erroneously depending on your
>     point of view. How do you use the surface=gravel tag in the USA?
>     Cheers Ian
>
>     On Tue, Feb 23, 2021 at 2:49 PM Brian M. Sperlongano
>     <zelonewolf at gmail.com <mailto:zelonewolf at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Hello all,
>
>         Recently, there was a discussion on the talk-us list regarding
>         how we use the tag highway=track.  That discussion begins here:
>         https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2021-February/020878.html
>         <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2021-February/020878.html>
>
>         During that discussion, someone suggested that Australian
>         mappers may also be using the highway=track tag in a similar
>         way to US mappers. Hence this message :)
>
>         I've recently made edits to the wiki page for highway=track
>         describing how the tag is used in the USA:
>
>         https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack#Usage_in_the_United_States
>         <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack#Usage_in_the_United_States>
>
>         If there is similarly a local variation in how this tag is
>         used, I would encourage the Australian community to document
>         their usage as well.
>
>         Brian Sperlongano
>         Rhode Island, USA
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