How to identify environmentally sensitive areas and "trail resting"?

smburk · February 26, 2025, 6:11pm

Please let me know how to identify environmentally sensitive areas and how to mark trails as “trail resting” to discourage their use.
Why I’m asking: The Wilbraham Massachusetts Open Space and Recreation Plan Committee conducts trail maintenance for our town. With increased trail usage, we’ve experienced a lot of trail proliferation: We now have some trails that run through environmentally sensitive areas, such as vernal pools. We also have folks creating so many trail cross-cuts and forks that casual users get confused and lost. We can not mark tag these trails as private, because they are on town-owned land. I am very new to OSM, and I could not find anything I could use to make the designations we need. Please help! Thanks! SMBurk

Mateusz_Konieczny · February 26, 2025, 6:30pm

note that access=private or access=no does not refer to ownership status

it refers to whether access there is illegal/banned

is it legal to go on this trails? or is it discouraged but without legal backing?

(note that you may have privately owned area where people can in general enter and publicly owned land with restrictive access - shopping malls and military bases respectively)

eerib · February 26, 2025, 6:34pm

Here is what I would do.

Ensure authorized trails are well marked and maintained. Ensure there is a large high quality map at every trailhead. Ensure there are smaller maps or wayfinding available at most trail intersections. This will ensure the public knows which trails are official and authorized.
Add signage at the trailheads that says “To minimize erosion and habitat damage, please stay on designated trails.”. With this signage, you can then mark unauthorized trails as foot=discouraged. This will prevent most routing applications from routing down the trails.
Reach out to user groups and trail users and learn about why they are creating trails. It is very likely that your management plan for this area is out of alignment with what the public desires and requires updating. You should also be working with these groups to organize trail maintenance days.
Work quickly to deactivate unauthorized trails by ploughing the trail tread where feasible, adding woody debris, adding plantings, enacting temporary barriers, and adding signage that reads “Ecological restoration in progress. Please keep out.”. Once you’ve fully deactivated the trail, you can then mark the trail as removed:highway=path. Once you’ve added the signage, you can mark the trail with access=no.
For any unauthorized trails you wish to keep but not make official make sure to mark them as unauthorized by adding informal=yes. This will deemphasis these trails in popular outdoor applications.

smburk · February 26, 2025, 6:39pm

Hello and thank you for your reply and the clarification about the meaning of “access”! I’m unsure about how to answer legality. We want all our trail users (hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders) to stay on our official town-blazed trails so that we do not degrade the areas where the trails are located. We have the backing of our town government in the sense that we are acting on behalf of the town government. What’s the best designation for us to use?

mcliquid · February 26, 2025, 6:45pm

If it is an official protected area, you can create it as an area:

boundary=protected_area
leisure=nature_reserve
name=*
protect_class=*
protection_title=*
short_protection_title=*

In addition, there are various options for marking the paths and/or area, depending on local legislation:

access=no → prescribed ban on entering
access:offroad=no → prescribed requirement to stay on the paths (“Please stay on the paths”)
access:offroad=yes@winter → seasonal requirement to stay on the paths in winter
access:offroad:conditional=no @ (Dec 15 - Apr 15) → prescribed requirement to stay on the paths between two dates
access:offroad:conditional=discouraged @ (winter) → prescribed requirement to stay on the paths in winter only
access:offroad=discouraged → desired regulation of access outside official trails
access:conditional=no @ (Mar 15 - Jun 15) → No trespassing from March 15 to June 15
access:conditional=no @ winter → No trespassing in winter
access=discouraged → Desired waiver of access (access is not prohibited, but is officially not recommended)
dog=leashed → Dogs only on a leash
horse=no → No horse riding

smburk · February 26, 2025, 6:55pm

Many thanks for your reply! We are indeed already working with our mountain biking community to do the things you mention in items 1 - 4 and I really appreciate seeing your reply which confirms we are on the right track. That said, the particular problem I am trying to address is that AllTrails uses OSM as its base: casual users of AllTrails continue to explore and degrade the areas we need to protect. I do not know whether SingleTrack also uses OSM as its base, but there’s trail proliferation there, too. We understand why these trails can not be deleted from OSM and we just want to make sure that users of APPs which subscribe to updates from OSM will be able to designate the unwanted trails as no-access. I’ve attached one screenshot from one of our Conservation and Recreation areas so you can see the extent of the problem we need to address.

PeterCooperJr · February 26, 2025, 7:00pm

OSM is about mapping what’s on the ground, so sometimes you have to update the ground-truth first. If there is signage (on each unofficial trail, or on a map at the trailhead, or whatever) that access to the unofficial trails is discouraged (“This is not a marked trail and we prefer the public to not take it”) or forbidden (“The general public are not allowed here”), then that can be mapped (as access=discouraged or access=private respectively), and will flow from there to various data consumers.

You may also want to look at the OSM US Trails initiatives, and connect with the Trails Working Group.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Trails_Stewardship_Initiative

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/United_States/Trails_Working_Group

smburk · February 26, 2025, 7:13pm

Many, Many thanks, Peter, to you and to everyone else who offered a reply! I believe I have a starting point now for how to address our problem. Now that I sense it is solvable, I will read the resources you have provided and report back to our Committee. Once the snow melts, our Mountain Biking Community has promised to begin to mark and “disable” the unauthorized trails. And once they have done that, I can get back into OSM and tag the trails as all of you have suggested, using the Trail Steward Initiative and Working Group as additional guidance. That said, I will most likely run into speed bumps, and if I do, I hope it will be OK for me to ask for more help .

Mateusz_Konieczny · February 26, 2025, 10:48pm

Definitely! Feel free to ask if unsure or confused, that is the main purpose of these forums.