[Talk-us] dirt road classification?

[Adam Schreiber]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Paul Fox <pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us> wrote:
> is there a way to distinguish pavement type separately from
> road classification?  is there a standard tag for doing so?

surface=foo
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface

> 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".

Could you provide a photo of one of these roads?

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

Potlach and Josm don't have comprehensive presets of all tags you
might want to use.

Cheers,

Adam