[Talk-ht] road classifications

Jaakko Helleranta.com jaakko at helleranta.com
Thu Jun 2 18:01:37 BST 2011


# "Path" vs. "footway"

Legal restriction or designation is one good way to back up the
classification. ... But that won't most probably help us much in Haiti.
"Legally" speaking, the road (if not highway (sic!) 101) would be secondary,
right?

But sticking with the path or footway issue: My take on it is somewhat
simple. If by practical observation I think the path will not or can not be
ridden with horses, walked with mules or ridden with bikes/motorcycles then
I might well classify it as footway. If there's a chance that any of the
above will use the path, then it's a "path".

I have to admit that I haven't thought much about the humanitarian presets.
Good observation. Need to look into them vs. classifications. Maybe this is
an example where presets aren't all good (if it means that mappers don't
learn what the result is from given presets (in the actual tags) or if they
don't learn what these results mean (path vs. footway, road vs. unclassified
vs. residential vs. track, etc).

# Unclassified or tracks?

... or residential ...  or service?

I really don't feel that I have enough practical experience to draw firm
generalizations on these. I think some generic guidelines are somewhat easy
(like that a road can't be unclassified or above if you can't drive it with
any car, which seems to be the case with 101 in some points -- so, maybe you
want to tag it unclassified for those parts that are passable with car and
track for those that are not? I don't see a reason not to tag unclassified
even in the middle of two impassable bits -- if such exist).

I think that one clear challenge for us/mapping Haiti is that the
unclassified vs. track has the 4x4 difference in the OSM's generic
definitions and in Haiti you need a 4x4 for driving some of the (functional)
secondary roads. Regardless of this I tend to want to tag roads that require
a 4x4 with track -- unless there's a good enough reason to tag it with
something "higher".

Cheers,
-Jaakko
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