I agree that in countries with large areas of lightly-developed land, like Australia, Canada, USA, there may be highway=track features which were never used for agriculture or forestry, but were originally designed for 4x4 or off-road recreational vehicles. These might be called "jeep tracks" or "4x4 trails" or similar. In the USA they will almost always be found on publicly-owned land which is only lightly protected, or designated for recreational use. In contrast to highway=footway or highway=path features, these recreational highway=track features are always wide enough for 2-tracked motor vehicles and motor vehicle traffic was the primary use case, at least originally (though in some cases the legal access may have changed).
Many highway=track features which are now used primarily for recreation were originally "fire roads" (used for forestry or maintenance of rangeland) or meant to access low-intensity grazing lands, or originally built for forestry purposes. Note that this line was recently added to the wiki page Tag:highway=track for clarity: "Some highway <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway>=track are used for various leisure activities - hiking, cycling, or as jeep/ATV trails." – Joseph Eisenberg On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 4:53 PM Graeme Fitzpatrick <graemefi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 at 05:47, Tod Fitch <t...@fitchfamily.org> wrote: > >> >> “Greenway” [1] was a term unknown to me too >> > > I only found out when I looked at the link you provided that we have > "foreshoreways", & one most prominently mentioned is only about 2k from > where I live! > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenway_(landscape)#Foreshoreway > > But back on topic (& you're probably all getting bored with us continually > saying it!), but here in Oz, "tracks" are almost always unpaved (grass or > dirt / rock surface) & they are frequently open for public recreational use > by vehicle, not "reserved for forestry or agricultural use" > > Thanks > > Graeme > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging >
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