[OSM-talk] Rendering of tracktype

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> If there is some legal reason for it to be only accessible by bikes and 
> tractors, then you'll need to use access restrictions 
> (access=no;agriculture=yes;bicycle=yes;foot=yes) anyway, as there is nothing 
> that says normal cars are not allowed to use tracks of grade1

I don't know if this is a German specialty but the tracks being 
discussed mainly carry the following sign disallowing all motorized traffic:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Zeichen_260.svg

And then the following exemption explicitly allowing 
agricultural/forestry use:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Zusatzzeichen_1026-38.svg

Surely it is possible to tag these ways as 
access=no,agriculture=yes,forestry=yes,bicycle=yes,horse=yes,foot=yes 
etc.etc. but it seems wrong to me; the signage *forbids* certain 
accesses and allows all others. You are suggesting to turn around the 
logic with your tagging: Forbid all accesss and then explicitly allow 
some. Which obviously breaks if new access types are introduced later.

What's more, in terms of kilometres we have vastly more of these in 
Germany than, say, pedestrian zones in cities. Nobody says that we 
should do away with highway=pedestrian even though you could perfectly 
well tag it as highway=residential,access=no,foot=yes - pedestrian areas 
are something that is known to everyone and so we just tag "here is a 
pedestrian area" instead of trying to describe what exactly a pedestrian 
area is.

So it is only understandable that the community is looking for an easy 
way to tag these kinds of tracks, and until now many seem to have used 
highway=track,tracktype=grade1 for them.

Maybe we should simply stop trying to find international lingo for 
something that seems to be a national type of road, and just recommend 
that people tag these things as "highway=land-und-forstwirtschaft", with 
implied access restrictions.

Bye
Frederik

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