[OSM-talk] highway=unsurfaced

[Nick Whitelegg]

>I have added highway=unsurfaced to the Map Features page as it is in use 
by many mappers, and has been rendered >by Osmarender for a while now.
>Rationale that I use is that highway=unsurfaced is used for part of the 
public highway (therefore subject to >rules of road/law, and is by 
extension traversable by normal road cars) that happens to not have a 
tarmac >surface.
>As against this highway=track is any unsurfaced way that is not part of 
public highway (eg farm tracks, etc, >and not normally traversable by 
normal road cars).

Hello Steve (and all),

How about tracks which have public access by foot (and perhaps horse) but 
not car? I generally tag these as highway=footway|bridleway, but it would 
be nice to be able to distinguish between paths and tracks. To me 
highway=track implies a private track (no public access at all).

I think at the end of the day we need a separate tag (not highway) for 
physical condition, e.g. physical_description=path|track|gravel|road. 
Different highway tags could have default values e.g highway=footway is 
default physical_description=path, but can be overridden as 
physical_description=track.

Nick