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

[Dave Swarthout]

 + I grew up in an area with these kinds of roads and I don't think
+ they're technically compacted.

Same here - "dirt roads", as we used to call them, are not compacted except
by vehicles driving on them. I learned the term "compacted" in OSM. In my
area, NY State and Alaska, the gravel is what's known as pit run, or is dug
from gravel quarries, spread out with a road-grader and not normally
compacted. Once or twice a year, a road-grader goes out and scrapes the
surface to remove ruts and potholes.

I often use surface=unpaved now just to avoid controversy and use
surface=ground when the surface has not been constructed from fill— people
simply drive on a road that's been cut through an area.

On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 6:22 AM, James Umbanhowar <jumbanho at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I grew up in an area with these kinds of roads and I don't think
> they're technically compacted.  The gravel, which is crushed
> limerstone, is laid down and due to its chemical properties creates a
> smooth surface after several months of traffic.
>
> I've used surface=gravel; gravel=crushed_limestone in my area.  I don't
> get the gravel being 4-8 cm, that seems a wikierror.
>
> James
>
> On Wed, 2018-04-18 at 17:19 -0500, Toby Murray 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=phot
> > o
> >
> > 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=phot
> > o
> >
> > 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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>
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-- 
Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com
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