[OSM-talk] highway=unsurfaced

[Tapio Sokura]

Steve Chilton wrote:
> 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.

I guess this has been mentioned before, but we really should aim for 
accurately and orthogonally tagging properties of map objects, instead 
of (ab)using tags to make the map look pretty in the short term. So far 
highway tags have been used for describing road importance (or general 
type, if not a road for cars). Now we have the same tag describing 
physical properties of the road itself.

Finland is one of those countries, where a large part of the secondary 
road network is unpaved. I can't see how to meaningfully tag it other 
than highway=secondary, surface=unpaved. And a small unpaved road would 
logically be highway=unclassified, surface=unpaved.

Anyway I'm just voicing my opinion from the bushes. Those who code, code 
however they like to code and that's just the way it is with voluntary work.

   Tapio