[Talk-GB] Private roads that are private for maintenance but are publicly accessible

[Jerry Clough - OSM]

An interesting set of points. I've been puzzling over three particular cases related to this. In each case I'm aware that the tagging is incomplete:

1. The Park Estate in Nottingham. This is emphatically a private estate, with, these days, electronically controlled bollards gates etc for motor access. The private maintenance extends to retaining gas lighting and it doesn't even appear in the OS meridian road dataset. However, there has never been any objection to people walking through the area. On the other hand it is not at all clear that there are any public rights of way, other than one which the council is currently in the process of designating. Although I am not sure that permissive is strictly accurate for walkers and cyclists, this is probably the best match, unless we have access=tolerated. 

2. Hospital, University campus area etc. Not at all sure about the status of roads and footpaths in these: other than I assume that they are owned and maintained by the hospital or university. Again motor access may be controlled or there may be gates giving this possibility, but foot and cycle traffic are generally universally tolerated.

3. Unadopted roads. I currently ignore these, but would like some means of recording them. Whereas if the road has a private sign I will usually set access=private. 

In the first two cases around Nottingham,  roads have been tagged highway=tertiary. This is, to my mind wrong, particularly as such roads are often heavily traffic calmed. 

I also probably tend to use access=private in a fairly English way, meaning that if you're told to leave you have to go, rather than access is impossible.

In conclusion I'd like to iron out some of the nuances of the access tags.

Cheers,

Jerry Clough
SK53







________________________________
From: Ian Spencer <ianmspencer at gmail.com>
To: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
Sent: Wed, 26 May, 2010 12:12:05
Subject: [Talk-GB] Private roads that are private for maintenance but are publicly accessible

Hi

I noticed that a local road which is private is designated as 
access::private on OSM. My reading of that tag is that it implies users 
need permission to use the road. However, in common with many private 
roads, it is in private maintenance, but it is public access - they have 
never tried to restrict public access, nor is the "private" sign 
anything other than a statement that the road is private, it does not 
say, for example :Private, no entry". As far as any user is concerned, 
they can treat it as a normal road.

I suppose the appropriate thing is to change access yes (or whatever the 
normal state is), and then add a note to ensure it is not re-instated. 
Does that sound right?

Spenny

_______________________________________________
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/attachments/20100526/b8337a42/attachment-0001.html>