[Talk-us] Usage of highway=track in the United States

[brad]

I use track if its a very rugged road.   In addition to farming and 
ranching roads, in the west there are many roads created for mining or 
logging that are mostly used for recreation now.   Some could be driven 
with a high clearance auto, but more often you need a 4wd vehicle or a 
motorcycle.    If I've been there I always add a smoothness tag because 
that is the best tag to distinguish between a high clearance road, a 4wd 
road, and a road that any car could drive on.   The names of the 
smoothness tags are unfortunate, but the descriptions are good enough.   
If it's a good enuf for a car and it goes far enough to connect to 
another road, it probably qualifies for at least a highway=unclassified 
tag.

A router should never route on a track unless it's explicitly routing 
for an adventure.

I think it's implied that it is public unless stated otherwise,  but 
there are many tracks that have been imported that are not properly 
tagged.   This is from my point of view, in Colorado, where there is a 
lot of public land.   This may be different in farming country. Even 
here, if it's a relatively short track that doesn't go anywhere and it 
is not clearly on public land, there is a good chance it is private.

Someone mentioned that we use the tags differently than the rest of the 
world.  I don't think that is correct as we have had several comments on 
the tagging list from Australians who use the tag similarly to how we 
use it.

Brad

On 2/19/21 4:56 PM, Brian M. Sperlongano wrote:
> US mappers: how do you apply highway=track in the US?
>
>