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

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 21:07 2021-02-24, Brian M. Sperlongano đã viết:
> Thanks all!
> 
> I'm hearing a consensus that the standard documented on the West 
> Virginia wiki page (essentially; any dirt/gravel road) is outside of the 
> national consensus on this issue -- and until we hear from a local WV 
> mapper -- may possibly be written in error.  I've updated the 
> highway=track wiki page to document this apaprent consensus.

Not sure if any West Virginia locals are on this mailing list, but there 
are one or two in OSMUS Slack. I'm not local to West Virginia but have 
mapped there extensively over the years as an armchair mapper. I'm from 
a neighboring state and have spent a total of two weeks in the state. 
Even that little bit has helped me know what to expect, because a lot of 
roads, rivers, and populated areas in WV are nestled in "hollers" 
(hollows) that are difficult to see in aerial imagery.

Most of the highway=track ways in the state were classified as such by 
the TIGER import. I wouldn't put too much credence in those 
classifications. Many TIGER-imported highway=residential roads are 
actually mining roads -- or in many cases, former mining roads -- that 
should be highway=track.

A few times, I had extended a named highway=residential way for several 
winding miles before realizing that it was a former mining road that had 
been imported with a name, probably because there was previously a 
normal road before the land was repurposed for strip-mining. But now the 
road dead-ended at a cliff because of mountaintop removal and was 
starting to get overgrown. In a less rugged state, I wouldn't sweat the 
classification so much, but a router will choose one of these 
misclassified roads in West Virginia because the public roads are often 
at least as windy.

I wasn't involved with the wiki page and also consider the blanket 
statement about dirt/gravel to be imprecise. After all, most driveways 
in rural areas of the state would have some sort of gravel or compacted 
surface, other than state-maintained driveways in the Home Access Road 
Program (HARP). But it's probably true that a gravel or otherwise 
unimproved road is relatively unlikely to be intended for non-local 
travel. As of 2014, the state maintained about 1,500 miles (55%) of 
unpaved local rural roads. [1] These are roads meant for public travel, 
albeit probably quite local travel.

About the only things I could confidently say about highway=track in 
West Virginia are:

* A mining road should be highway=track.
* A road with a name _and number_ is very unlikely to be highway=track, 
but a road with just a name from TIGER could go either way.
* A primitive, unimproved, graded, stabilized, or otherwise unpaved road 
is unlikely to have any higher classification than highway=unclassified 
(though it seems to be possible in a few very rural counties).

[1] ftp://gis.transportation.wv.gov/HPMS_Reports/Rdwy_Stats_2014.pdf#page=51

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us