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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