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

[Alex Weech]

To add my thoughts in more detail to this conversation,

Here are a few more examples of similar ways:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/615306962
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/614592210
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/689574384
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/502992957
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/18859414

In northern New England you get used to checking for unmaintained roads in computer-generated directions before setting out to someplace you've never been or else get caught going down a road that barely exists anymore. Tagging public highways like these as highway=path + motor_vehicle=yes is an option, though that'd get weird on public highways where cars aren't allowed. Tagging them as unclassified or residential is not IMO. If we could get Carto and the other renderers to render smoothness, surface, and width then maybe, and then we'd be in a perpetual edit war with routers like Amazon who ignore those. I say that track is the best tag for these (and all of the many <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/168589159>, many <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/10172645> diverse <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/10195400> desert <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/808155662> tracks <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/841814631> that I also work with in other parts of the country) because it's already supported pretty much everywhere. Most routers made account for the predominant US usage already, and the Carto rendering makes a ton of sense. The point of this thread from my point of view is to document current usage so it can be added to the Wiki in the needed places.

Sincerely,
aweech


On Tue, Feb 23, 2021, at 4:37 PM, Mike Thompson wrote:
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 23, 2021 at 2:16 PM Zeke Farwell <ezekielf at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 23, 2021 at 3:51 PM Mike Thompson <miketho16 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> There are a number of houses along that road.  I would tag it highway=residential.  
>> 
>> While it may look that way at first glance, the houses are all accessible from the nearby roads that ARE tagged highway=residential, not the portion that is tagged highway=track.  There are many sections of road like this in Vermont.  Maintenance is minimal because there are no houses on them, but they are through roads for appropriate vehicles (high clearance, 4WD maybe).  I'm not saying these should be tagged as highway=track, just that there currently are.  highway=unclassified with appropriate surface and smoothness tags could work, but it seems mappers like the clear distinction that these are a different type of road.
> That makes sense.  I see now that it is just that short stretch, and there are no houses whose primary access appears to be from that road. Thanks for the explanation. 
> 
> Mike
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-us mailing list
> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/attachments/20210223/1ee3169e/attachment-0001.htm>