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

[Rihards]

On 2018.04.19. 02:36, Jack Burke wrote:
> I've been tagging roads like that as compacted, once I learned more
> about the surfacing tech.

Same here - was tagging roads like that as gravel until I found out it's
compacted.

Editor topic - perhaps editors should be extended to offer both
compacted & gravel for the UI choice of "gravel", with compacted being
default even ?

> -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
-- 
 Rihards