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

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 25.02.21 13:18, Simon Poole wrote:
> highway=road is a left over from the really old days of OSM before we
> had aerial imagery and the likes and IMHO should in general not be used
> at all any more. It is a far better approach to guess a (low)
> classification than to use "road". Very definitely if you are in the
> position to determine a surface value you are in the position to set an
> appropriate proper highway value.

It is a discussion worth having. Frankly, I find the idea of erring on
the side of caution has something to it: "I can see there is a road here
but I am 5000 miles away and hence I have zero clue if this road is
available to the general public so I won't claim that it is" - it's not
the silliest idea.

Tagging something as "highway=track" without further details will be
interpreted by almost anyone as "being available to the public".

As someone who is part of the team that receives complaints from land
owners, park managers and the like, I wonder if we as a project need to
start exercising more caution when we carelessly claim that any track we
spot on aerial imagery is usable for the general public.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

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