Thanks for the quick reply.

I would think there has to be some upper limit for the weight of vehicles which the state will "license to operate on public roads", or?

Hi Rob,
Looks like you tagged several residential roads in this area with lhv=yes (e.g. osm.org/way/547794401), which according to the wiki, means that Longer Heavier Vehicles are allowed, which means up to 6 axles and 44 metric tons (97,000 pounds). Given the limit in the US is generally 80,000 pounds, are you sure that it is legal for such heavy loads to be on these roads without a special reason (such as being an emergency vehicle)?
Mike

I agree with Nakaner. It is very difficult to determine tracktype remotely. One would need to have at least surveyed similar tracks nearby and be familiar with the soil types in the area, and the terrain, but even then, it would be difficult.

Hi Brian, "Maxwell Ranch Road" (if that is in fact its name) (osm.org/way/383559168#map=14/40.7859/-105.4357) is a tricky call as to whether it is a path or a track. It is probably legally permissible for the rancher who leases the land to drive a motor vehicle on it, and of course the land manager could as well. At one point someone certainly did given the infrastructure around there (old buildings, irrigation projects). Whether anyone does at this point is difficult to say. All of the bridges have been washed out or removed (strange they all seem to be upstream from what appears to be their original locations). The resulting stream crossings would be the only challenge for a vehicle, but I would guess that a non-stock 4x4 could make it.

Yes, I was conflicted about that. Larimer County does own that parcel, but it still has a house on it, so is it currently part of the park or not? As a park user I probably would not be welcome to wander around that house. I could go either way though.

Ok, I think I found the right USDA dataset now. I am downloading it and will examine later.

It is great that you wrote some software to do that compare. I have been thinking about doing something like that to compare OSM trails with COTREX trails (once I get permission to use COTREX in OSM). COTREX has some errors, but the comparison will be a good place start for further research.

I must be missing something (which is very possible). I downloaded the USDA road data from the link and I am not seeing the track in question in that data (I just downloaded S_USA.Road_MNUM.shp - perhaps I need to get all four datasets). The old USGS topos (scanned image of the paper maps) show the track, but no name for it.

Thanks for the quick reply. Where can I get this "USDA Road Core" dataset? Is it here: https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php?dsetCategory=transportation? - or is that something else?

It will probably come as no surprise to you that the further one gets away from the local level, the worse the government data gets. For example, I looked at 140 named bodies of water in the Big Thompson Watershed from the USGS National Hydragraphy Dataset (NHD) and found 13 errors.

I wish we had a contact at the local level for the Forest Service whom we could raise questions like this. Perhaps I will make some calls.

I am not familiar with access=service (but then again, there are a lot of things I am not familiar with). I assume that you, as a fire fighter, can access just about anywhere in your area of service in the event of an emergency, even if "private" (perhaps the only exception might be a military installation, which would have its own fire department).

Hello again,
Regarding osm.org/way/6166430, where does the name "Glade Road" come from? I have been around this area for over ten years and have never heard of that private track called this. There is a "Glade Road" some miles east of here however (osm.org/way/6165231). I am also not familiar with the name "Main Way", nor FS 405. Track in question is not even in Larimer County E911 roads data, so presumably they don't have a name for it. According to Larimer County parcel data, it is almost entirely on private land (except for about 100 yards on its western end), and there is also a gate and sign on its eastern end that it is private, so I would think access=private.

Thanks!

Wow, you have done a lot of work in this area!

Just FYI, highway=crossing is for location where a "pedestrians can cross a street", not for the junction of two or more paths.[1]

[1] osm.wiki/Tag:highway%3Dcrossing

That is fantastic!

I can't find the trail I had in mind. Perhaps you folks already fixed it. I did submit some other feedback.

I will email the address you provided asking for permission.

Brian, It is great that you have the rangers interested in OSM! The COTREX database is something in which I am interested. Perhaps Zachary could provide us a contact from whom we could request permission to use in OSM as a reference when editing. I generally find that OSM has the best trails data, but I did find that COTREX has some that OSM does not (I also found a trail in COTREX that doesn't exits - spent considerable time looking for it on the ground to no avail)
Mike

The "Prairie Ridge Trail" that goes from the parking lot to "Ridge to Ridge Trail" and then heads south to the dead-end. is even wider and a bit smoother. If we go with your definition (like I said before, I am just looking for consistency - internal, and over time), it should be "highway=track" as well. Does paving automatically disqualify it as a track? If not, the Poudre trail and Loveland Rec trail (now they have given each section a different name) would be track as well. Even if not, there is part of the Loveland Rec trail that is currently unpaved, so it would certainly become "highway=track" I would think.

I am holding off on any further edits one way or the other. Perhaps we can get the larger community to come to a consensus...

I tried contacting the mapper who changed the Power Trail at Bobcat to highway=path, I haven't heard back.

CragMapper - If the community can agree on a rule like "anything traversable by a two track vehicle (need to specify if that includes ATVs as they are narrower and can handle rougher terrain), whether it is legal, common, or intended, is at least a track", (does it have to be unpaved?) I can start mapping that way. Will have to change trails at Bobcat (the east part of the Valley Trail used used by the rangers in their ATV side by side, not to mention the power trail, and parts of the horse trail are wide enough), Rivers Edge in Loveland, Prairie Ridge, and the trail from Blue Sky TH to Soderberg TH and on to Towers, and probably a lot more... which is ok.

I don't want an edit war either. I respect that you are a local, use these trails on a regular basis, use these data, and have made many (what appear to me as) quality edits to OSM.

I would actually be happy to tag things in the manner you suggest, if that is the community consensus. In fact I would go around and change everything in our local area in order to be consistent. What bothers me is not your edits, but the fact that the community (though the mailing list), seemed to give me the exact opposite advice a couple of weeks ago regarding the trails at Prairie Ridge Open Space (there were a couple of dissenting opinions, but I think most that responded said highway=path). Those ways are much wider, and in general smoother, than the ones in question here. At the very least it would be good to get all of the local "power mappers" on board, although that still leaves the possibility of someone from 1,000 miles away coming in and undoing our work (it happens).

There is always going to be some grey areas in any classification system, but I think functional classification can work, if the community can agree.

""highway=track Implies that it's wide enough for a small motorcar to drive on" but the converse is not necessarily true, "wide enough for small motorcar does not necessarily imply track. In other words, you can't have a track that is narrower than about 1 meter, but just because it is greater than 1 meter, doesn't mean it is a track.

"functional classification" is not arbitrary. It answers the question "what function does this way serve?", These ways do not function to provide access to agricultural or forest lands, and hence, are not "tracks."

I am a user of this data as well. The fact that aps/renderers do not render the data in a manner we like is not a reason to tag in a certain way. We should submit change requests/pull request to the app/renderer maintainer.

If physical condition is important, add tags like width, surface, smoothness, mtb:scale. sac_scale, etc. and then ask that app maintainer to render based on those tags.

Thanks for the edits to OSM!
These recreational trails should all be tagged "highway=path", as they have been for many years. OSM uses a functional classification for the highway tag, not a physical classification (physical information can be placed in surface, smoothness, width, etc. tags). The only four wheeled vehicles that are legally allowed to use these trails are law enforcement, emergency, and maintenance staff. The function of the trails is for recreation by people on foot, bicycle or horse. We recently had this discussion on the tagging mailing list.

Way osm.org/way/706965874 leads to a house, therefore it is not a track, it is a driveway (highway=service, service=driveway). The fact that it is unpaved has nothing to do with its functional classification. If you want to let people know that it is unpaved, tag it surface=unpaved.