Render paved tracks in different way than unpaved

[ray66]

Currently the surface and tracktype of tracks is not taken into account, all tracks are rendered in the same way. I propose to differentiate paved/unpaved tracks depending on the surface attribute. The rendering style could be:

unpaved tracks: unchanged
paved track: as today, without the brown pattern, i.e. like unclassified but with thinner border.

The current rendering of tracks is probably sufficient for most areas where HOT intervened in the past. In other regions there are a lot of highway=track, surface=paved|asphalt, for example in Germany and, for a lesser extent, in France. Now that the style has made its way into the OSM main page, and for being prepared for humanitary intervention in all regions of the world, it would be usefull to have this tracks rendrered differently from unpaved ones .

[yohanboniface]

I wonder if a paved track is still a track?

Anyway, I will consider tacking tracktype into account, but it's not in our preset, so maybe the discussion should land there in first place, cc @worldwidewolford @skorasaurus @jaakkoh

My concern is about mixing too much keys related to surface: surface, smoothness (already taken into account), tracktype, but there are others that raise sometimes (practicability is one of those)...

In any case, tracktype usage is huge, which is in favour of this request: http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/highway=track#combinations

[ray66]

Sorry, I was not aware of this preset thing and I do not quite understand what it is for.

Paved tracks vs. unclassified has always been a topic of discussion. One of the most common criteria for making the distinction is that a highway=unclassified is connecting to an inhabited place or connecting to a higher level road. In a country like Germany, many ways do not fulfill either of these criteria but are well paved, and therefore are commonly tagged as highway=track.

Concerning tracktype, smoothness and practicability, they are rather subjective criteria. I always was in favor of tagging paved tracks with tracktype=grade1 until I learned that there is no consensus on this. Even if I consider that the wiki supports my point of view, I must admit that in many parts of France grade1 is widely used for unpaved tracks. On the other hand, surface is an objective criteria if, at least if we rely on paved/asphalt/concrete to make the selection.

[matkoniecz]

I wonder if a paved track is still a track?

Yes, as highway=track is defined by function (used for forestry/agriculture) rather than by quality. Some forests in Poland have high quality roads constructed/currently used mainly for forestry use (in addition used by tourists, primarily cyclists).

In 2008 it was explicitly documented that highway=track that "used for agriculture and forestry" is defining track, not its surface. It restored initial definition from 2006 that was allowing paved roads implicitly and reverted change that in 2006 documented tracks as always unpaved.