[Talk-us] dirt road classification?

[Paul Fox]

is there a way to distinguish pavement type separately from
road classification?  is there a standard tag for doing so?
in new england (and i assume in other parts of the country)
it's not uncommon to have unpaved state numbered routes.  or
unpaved residential areas. 

i turned to the wiki, but i find i need some interpretive help.  the
third sentence at:
    http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_roads_tagging#Other_Roads
is unparseable.  but even if i assume that the first three words
should be dropped, i'm left with:
    "Unpaved roads, dirt track roads, forest development roads,
    jeep trails, and roads not passable by all vehicles merit
    highway=track instead."
which seems like far too big a bucket for the roads i'm thinking
of.  in my mind there's a big difference between "unpaved" and "track".

and finally, if i _did_ want to use "highway=track", shouldn't
potlatch give that option in the dropdown menu?

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 59.7 degrees)