[Talk-us] Unpaved streets

[Richard Weait]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Paul Fox<pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us> wrote:
> let me ask a simplifying (for me) question.
>
> i want to encourage a group of motorcycling friends to help
> update OSM so that it accurately reflects road surface, for roads
> that are currently undifferentiated in that regard.  the single
> most important thing that needs to be captured is whether the
> road is paved or not:  this information is missing (or very
> incomplete) in every commercial US map that i've seen.

I see why this is of great interest to motorcyclists.

> is it ever wrong to simply add "surface=unpaved"?

It is ideal, generous and very helpful to add surface=unpaved where
the data is missing.

> and while it
> might be also correct to switch to "highway=track", that's an
> orthogonal change, right?

Right.  That is a separate and apparently endless discussion.  ;-)

> paul
> p.s.  i'll also be asking my friends to update for road
> existence -- many roads from the Tiger set no longer exist in any
> form, yet still exist in all the commercial (google, etc) data.

Wonderful!