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According to the Tag:highway=track wiki:

This tag represents roads for mostly agricultural use, forest tracks etc.

However I usually see that people map dirt roads in cities as tracks. For example for roads near rivers or service/parking roads in a parking lot or a residental area, etc. These are clearly not for agricultural use, but people tag them as tracks, probably because the rendering is different and it does look like a dirt road in the map. Another reason could be that in the hungarian editor on OSM, track is translated to a term that also means dirt road, and people tend to use that because they think that is the proper way to tag. Is this okay, or should these be retagged to highways with the proper surface tags?

asked 20 Nov '14, 02:30

UntaggedWay's gravatar image

UntaggedWay
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Quite similar to the questions by users Dpjanda and Awalé on Talk:Tag:highway=track. (Old) Answers by user achadwick there (in short, if I understood correctly: they are "service" instead of "track).

Also see the new addition to the highway=track page and the OSMcarto map style discussion link in it.

permanent link

answered 20 Nov '14, 02:59

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦
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edited 23 Nov '14, 17:52

4

I'd say that it depends - just because something's unpaved doesn't mean that it's a "track", and just because something's in a city doesn't mean that it isn't.

For many years I lived down what everyone locally described as a "track" or a "lane" which was used equally for agricultural and residential access - I wouldn't say that it became a service or residential road just because you could get to some houses using it.

If you go there and have a look, what does it look most like - a residential road, some other sort of road, or a track? Tag that, then tag access, surface, width, etc.

(02 Jan '15, 17:03) SomeoneElse ♦
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question asked: 20 Nov '14, 02:30

question was seen: 3,664 times

last updated: 11 May '15, 13:08

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum