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

Tue Feb 23 07:04:28 UTC 2021

While I appreciate that you are attempting to document how this tag is
actually used, there seems to be some too strong assertions in the new
section:

1) highway=track is used for paved forestry roads in parts of the USA with
heavy rainfall, e.g. Oregon:
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/141R  - for example
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/5520248 and several nearby private
forestry roads in the Bull Run watershed. There are also some logging roads
in privately owned forestlands which are paved. There are 265
highway=track + tracktype=grade1 + surface=paved ways in California:
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/141S

2) Re: usage "For any unmaintained, minimally maintained, or overgrown
road, regardless of usage or purpose"
Can we actually cite examples of ways roads that meet that standard but
which are not primarily tracks from a usage standpoint?

3) Re: "For abandoned roads"
- If by "abandoned" do you mean "disused" or "unusable"? This is somewhat
confusing. I think it is generally considered incorrect to map
unusable roads (even for off-road vehicles like ATVs or mountain bikes) as
highway=track if they no longer exist, say if they are completely overgrown
with scrub or completely washed out by erosion or landslides. While there
are many non-existent roads currently in OpenStreetMap, that's because the
Tiger data was often very old, or people have imported old forestry or
agricultural tracks which no longer exist.

4) Re: "rural... away from population centers" - This is somewhat
misleading. The tag highway=track is often used in semi-developed parks and
natural areas located right next to cities.  Searching overpass-turbo finds
over 400 tracks in New York City, mostly in recreational lands, cemeteries
or parks: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/141T

-- Joseph Eisenberg

On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 7:41 PM Brian M. Sperlongano <zelonewolf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies.  This was very helpful in
> shaping the community understanding of how we're using this tag in the US.
>
> Based on this discussion, I've written up the following section on the
> wiki:
>
>
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack#Usage_in_the_United_States
>
> Hopefully I've accurately captured our discussion here, even if it does
> make things a bit muddy from a global perspective.  Feel free to revise
> this if you think I've gotten anything wrong!
>
> On Sun, Feb 21, 2021 at 12:53 PM Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:
>
>> Brian,
>>
>> Thanks for collecting these insights. I wouldn't call its usage
>> controversial based on the mere fact that there is a range of
>> interpretations of its usage--that would render a good number of tags in
>> OSM controversial.
>>
>> The bigger issue here is what is actually on the wiki. Right now,
>> discussions about US road tagging feed on a set of alternative truths on
>> there, which is not productive and makes for recurring discussions on the
>> same topics without a satisfying conclusion.
>> A quite non-exhaustive list of pages with redundant / conflicting
>> information:
>>
>>    -
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Road_classification
>>    -
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_Roadway_Classification_Guidelines
>>    - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_roads_tagging
>>    -
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway:International_equivalence
>>    - The international equivalent sections of the common road classes,
>>    like
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrunk#International_equivalence
>>    - Various state page's sections on highway tagging, such as
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/West_Virginia#Functional_Classification,
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/New_Jersey#Classifications,
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state)#Highway_Classification,
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Indiana#Highway_Classifications,
>>    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Florida#Tagging_ideas_for_Florida
>>    (there are likely many more)
>>
>> This is not saying you're wrong to raise it, not at all. I'm just
>> pointing out a root cause in the hopes that we can start working on fixing
>> the bigger issue. This is a big pile of work but with big reward as well.
>>
>> Martijn
>> On 2/19/2021 4:56 PM, Brian M. Sperlongano wrote:
>>
>> The usage of the tag highway=track is controversial.  Through
>> discussion with both US-based and foreign mappers, it is apparent that
>> this tag is used differently in the US than it is in the rest of the
>> world.  Further, the usage in the US appears to be different from how
>> it is documented on the OSM wiki[1].
>>
>> The wiki description is "roads for mostly agricultural use, forest tracks etc."
>>
>> In the US, the 2007 TIGER import assigned highway=track to CFCC code
>> A51, which is described as "Vehicular trail, road passable only by 4WD
>> vehicle, unseparated".
>>
>> In a recent Slack discussion[2], mappers shared their perspective on
>> how they use highway=track:
>>
>> "I always use track for public, unmaintained highways and usually use
>> track for discontinued roads. My thought is that if it used to be a
>> road, and snowmobiles and ATVs can still use it, then track works
>> (with access=permissive if applicable)" -aweech, New Hampshire
>>
>> "I use highway=path for trails that were formerly cut as forestry
>> tracks (wide between trees), but are now only beaten in a single-track
>> due to exclusively non-motorized usage." -adamfranco, Vermont
>>
>> "I use it for any rough, unmaintained looking track" -Zeke Farwell, Vermont
>>
>> "I use track for any road that would be irresponsible to route over
>> because it might wreck a car, or isn’t cleared of snow, tree, or flood
>> debris, or only used during some seasons.. the “purpose” of the road
>> doesn’t matter to me." -bhousel, New Jersey
>>
>> "I don't think forestry and agriculture are bad reasons for a road to
>> be a track, and that does indeed match the definition of a lot of
>> tracks in Colorado. If it were expanded to include the fact that this
>> use might be historical, and then add mining and other natural
>> resource management, and unmanaged recreation, then you'd cover almost
>> all of what we call tracks in the US" -phidauex, Colorado
>>
>> It appears that the US usage of highway=track follows more closely to
>> the definition from the TIGER import, which is based on physical
>> characteristics, rather than the wiki definition, which is based on
>> usage.
>>
>> US mappers: how do you apply highway=track in the US?
>>
>>
>> [1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway=track
>> [2] https://osmus.slack.com/archives/C2VJAJCS0/p1613754200382000
>>
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