Richard Fairhurst wrote:
Hi all,
There are almost 8m highway=track objects in the database (thanks
taginfo!), third only to =residential and =service (thanks TIGER!).
I'm interested to know what level of access people believe this
implies in their home countries.
Here in the UK, for example, highway=track is often used for private
farm tracks, so you can't safely route over it unless access tags have
been added. But evidently that's not always the case elsewhere.
Here's how I'd interpret a "highway=track" with no access tabs in
England or Wales (or at least the bits that I tend to frequent),
particularly with regard to foot access:
1) If it's got no other tags on it (e.g. no surface or tracktype tags),
then there's a risk been added from imagery alone, and I wouldn't assume
that I could route over it (especially not to "get me home before dark"
on a circular route).
2) If it's got any sort of other tags on it (surface, tracktype,
designation, width, mtb_scale) I'd assume that someone's been down
there, so access is at least "not physically prevented". I also find
background GPS layer that iD uses for this useful (though I doubt that
you could do much with that?). It doesn't mean that access is legal
though, so I wouldn't assume that I could use it.
3) If I was recommending to someone else whether or not to take a route
over a highway=track in England or Wales, I wouldn't suggest it unless
it had either explicit access tags (or a designation tag that suggests
that it ought to have an access tag).
Cheers,
Andy
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