[Talk-us] Gravel roads and surface tags in the US

Jack Burke burkejf3 at gmail.com
Wed Apr 18 23:36:49 UTC 2018


I've been tagging roads like that as compacted, once I learned more about the surfacing tech.

-jack

-- 
Typos courtesy of fancy auto spell technology

On April 18, 2018 6:19:07 PM EDT, Toby Murray <toby.murray at gmail.com> wrote:
>I recently bought a gravel bicycle to ride on the many gravel roads in
>Kansas. Like this one:
>https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=nYO4JI46L0SWzNAQlLT4kA&focus=photo
>
>First question: What would you call this road? Obviously I am calling
>it a "gravel road" but a couple of people have said they would call it
>a "dirt road" so I'm curious if there are any other common terms to
>describe this type of road in different regions of the US.
>
>Second question: How would you tag this road? There is a
>surface=gravel tag that is in pretty common usage in Kansas and
>neighboring states. However looking at the wiki page for the surface
>tag[1], this is not wiki-correct. According to that page
>surface=gravel is to be used for large rocks (4-8cm) that are laid
>down loosely like those typically used as ballast on railroad beds. I
>believe The Mapillary picture I linked to would be considered
>surface=compacted according to the wiki because the rocks are much
>smaller and the surface is stabilized with a binding agent. There is a
>big difference between the two when it comes to bicycle riding.
>Railroad ballast is bone jarring and flat tire inducing whereas gravel
>roads are pretty manageable on the right kind of bike.
>
>But If you call something a "gravel road" and there is a "gravel"
>option in the editor preset for the surface tag, people are going to
>choose the gravel option and not look for "compacted" since that is
>not a common term here. I assume it is a more common term in the UK
>and that is why it is used in OSM.
>
>And lastly there are trails that are surfaced with a similar material
>but crushed to a smaller size like here:
>https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=iQNqP-dfQ-Rm6AD9REMsgQ&focus=photo
>
>I'm trying to decide if that is better as surface=compacted or
>surface=fine_gravel although fine_gravel seems to be a slightly
>different process from what I see on the wiki.
>
>Maybe this should be directed at the tagging list but I thought I
>would get thoughts from the US community since we seem to be the ones
>using the tag incorrectly (according to the wiki)
>
>[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface
>
>Toby
>
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