OpenStreetMap
About a year ago, I actually encountered a use of highway=road as I aligned roads and added a bit more detail to the area at the south end of Mendocino National Forest. And what is a “road”? A placeholder! “Undefined” is actually quite defined comparatively. I investigated what it should be a placeholder for and found it was marking an ATV trail. It had been there a few years and could survive a few more.
Since JOSM doesn’t even seem to know one might want to set a value called “atv”, perhaps I should explain. Also called a “quad”, these narrow little four wheeled things can’t quite go everywhere a motorcycle can go, but they’ll get a lot more places than a 4x4 vehicle. There were 3 wheeled ones (probably still are in other places) but they were banned because they killed people more often due to rolling more easily. People grumbled at first. Three wheels is more fun! But they seem happy now. It hurts to roll over. Often tagging goes a little like this:
highway=[um]
atv=yes/designated
motorcar=no
maxwidth=1.27
(No side-by-sides, as the signs in Colorado often said! Those are often known as ATV or UTV.)
But is [um] a path or a track?
Well, the wiki on “path” is quite clear: “A highway=path is not for use by four-wheeled (two-track) vehicles.” Then it muddles a little: “A path-like way where four-wheeled vehicles are allowed, is likely better tagged as a highway=track or highway=service.” Only “likely”.
Meanwhile, on the wiki on “track” we find that track is “generally not appropriate” for “A trail or path that is not wide enough for a typical four-wheeled motor vehicle.” There is a footnote to clarify this: “A “typical four-wheeled motor vehicle” means a general purpose or average motor vehicle commonly used in a given region. The size and capability of what is considered a typical, common, or average vehicle varies around the world.”
