[OSM-talk] highway=unsurfaced

[Anthony]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 8:59 PM, David Murn <davey at incanberra.com.au> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-01-11 at 20:39 -0500, Anthony wrote:
>
>> > So, while 'road' may mean a tarred bit of bitumen in the UK, and it
>> > means something passable by a vehicle in Australia, in the OSM context
>> > it means an unknown classification, temporarily tagged until the
>> > required re-survey is complete.
>>
>> It means a *road* of unknown classification.  Apparently to some
>> people that word "road" means something more than just "a path where
>> people drive motor vehicles", and that in order to be a road the path
>> has to have some sort of official standing.
>
> You seem to keep getting mixed up between the UK understanding of the
> word 'road' and the OSM context of the meaning of highway=road.  As you
> can read (quoted) in my original email, highway=road means "unknown
> classification".

As I said, highway=road is not defined as "unknown classification", it
is defined as "a road of unknown classification".  And the differing
notions of the meaning of "road" don't seem to be restricted to the
UK.  For instance, see the response by Greg Troxel, who I am assuming
lives in Massachusetts.

The wiki is confusing, though.  It puts highway=residential,
highway=track, highway=service, and highway=pedestrian under the
subcategory of "roads", but it puts highway=cycleway, highway=footway,
and highway=bridleway under the subcategory of "paths".  Which I
thought was distinguishing between motor vehicle traffic allowed and
motor vehicle traffic not allowed.  But then highway=pedestrian would
be an exception.

> In Australia for example, there are instances where bicycle paths can be
> 8' wide asphalt with a clearly defined line painted down the middle,
> while a nearby vehicle access road might be barely 6' wide and made of
> dirt.  From aerial imagery, both of these should be tagged as
> highway=road since the type of way is unknown.

Well, according to my understanding of the wiki, a cycleway (like a
bridleway and a footway) is a "path" and not a "road".  If we want to
keep that distinction, maybe there should be a highway=unknown tag,
for cases where we don't know if it's a "path" or a "road".

> If youre going to re-tag unknown road types, this seems the logical
> choice.

Well, I'm not going to re-tag unknown road types.

>> I see no point in mass changing tags.  At best it provides equal
>> information.  At worst it provides less information.  And according to
>> some it provides wrong information.
>
> The fact is, whether we like it or not, people will mass-change tags.
> Lets at least try to encourage them to not break things too badly when
> they do so.

I disagree.  I would encourage anyone reading this who is thinking
about mass-changing highway=unsurfaced to not do so, or at the very
least to present a good reason for doing so here on this list and
discuss that reasoning first.

No matter what highway=unsurfaced is mass-changed to, things aren't
broken too badly, as it can easily be mass-reverted.