On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 6:13 PM Tod Fitch <t...@fitchfamily.org> wrote:
> The two major factions seem to be set in their ways: “It is only a track if > it is used for agriculture or forestry” on one side. “It has the same > physical characteristics as a track, so it is a track even if it is currently > used for hiking, bicycling, riding horses, or by ATVs” on the other side. > > That also spills into is it a track or a service (driveway)? Depends on if it > goes to a barn or a house! But I can’t tell without trespassing, how can I > map it? > > First step, I think, is to be less pedantic about function on things that > look exactly like a track. Mappers in all the areas I’ve looked at will tag a > way that is unpaved and about the width of a four wheeled vehicle as a track > regardless of current use. Maybe it is being used as a driveway. Maybe it is > being used as a bicycling/hiking/equestrian trail. Maybe it accesses a field. > Maybe it hasn’t been used for a while and just hasn’t decayed or been > overgrown into nothing. Who knows? But it looks like a track. Saying that the > way “isn’t for forestry or agricultural use” so it can’t be a track is > worthless: Real world mappers have voted otherwise with their tagging. In terms of function, 'track' and 'service' (with or without 'driveway') are practically interchangeable - at least in terms of what they provide to the road network. They're both distinguished by the fact that they don't 'go anywhere'. They typically serve only a single establishment - public roads that serve multiple establishments are typically at least 'unclassified'. They typically are something that a router should treat by default as 'access=destination'. They're the 'leaves' of the network. The distinction makes essentially no difference to routing, unless you are of the faction that believes that 'track' is something that needs more than a regular car. Even then, if your destination lies on a track, you probably are equipped for it. It makes a difference to rendering, well, mostly because someone thought it ought to. For me, If I see the ruts that indicate that double-tracked vehicles use a way, it's at least a track. That causes me to map some hiking trails as tracks (because they're also snowmobile trails, or because there's someone with an inholding who has keys to the gate, or the park service drives on them, or whatever. I've departed from that in cases where the ruts are obviously not current, for instance in the case of a logging road that's been abandoned long enough that trees are growing in it, even though ruts and workings are clearly visible (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ke9tv/14919563634 - note that not all the workings have held up as well: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ke9tv/14920137133) I don't use 'path' very much except that JOSM wants to use it for 'combined foot- and cycleway'. Using JOSM, I'll typically tag a way as a 'path' so that I get the dialog where I can quickly fill in surface, smoothness, maybe width and incline. Then I retag using one of the 'footway', 'cycleway' or 'bridleway' presets depending on the largest creature that uses it - so I've recently tagged a few track-ish things around here as 'highway=bridleway surface=compacted smoothness=good bicycle=designated foot=designated width=3' There's some evidence that motor vehicles use it occasionally, but only for official purposes. The locals near me seem to use 'service' or 'unclassified' if you can drive on it in a regular car (at least in summer) and 'track' if you are likely to need a four-wheeler or at least a high ground clearance. This is fundamentally an American perspective. I'm sure that there's some sort of legal difference in the UK between a service way and a track that's extremely important. -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
