[Talk-us] How to map snowmobile trails in US?

[Jmapb]

On 5/7/2020 8:05 PM, Bob Gambrel wrote:
> So imagine this simple example. A path (of some sort) goes from point
> A to B. Between points B and C there is no way (no path, road,
> highway, cycle way, foot path, track, etc. Then there is another path
> of some sort between points C and D. So the relationship (a snowmobile
> route) includes ways "AB", "BC" and "CD". What type of way should "BC"
> be?
>
> This area shows such a snowmobile trail:
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=17/45.83596/-95.31124
>
> Much of it is not along any visible way of any sort. It looks like
> part of it could be on an existing (but not mapped unpaved service
> road) and part of it crosses a stream next to (but probably on) an
> unmapped little bridge. If all the ways that were mappable were
> actually mapped, most of the snomobile trail would still be on
> unmapped (unmappable) "invisible in the summer" ways.

Best I know, these paths that only appear in the winter should be tagged
highway=path + seasonal=winter + snowmobile=yes/designated. Probably
also good to add foot=no and bicycle=no.

Of course they'll render year-round, and future mappers looking at
snowless aerial imagery might be inclined to delete them. So it would
probably be good to add a note that says "this path only appears in the
winter and is tagged accordingly, please do not delete based on aerial
imagery."

There's extremely limited use (literally 13 uses, all in Finland) of
seasonal:winter:highway=path. Putting the seasonality in a prefix would
allow you to avoid the troll tag aspect of highway=path +
seasonal=winter, but software support for this scheme is unlikely.

Asking on the tagging list is a good idea -- Talk-us is a bit of a ghost
town.

Jason