Is access=no + motor_vehicle=yes valid?

Attempting to tag a way which is open only to motorized traffic signed with “no non-motorized traffic”(but not a motorway) in the United States I came across the reccomendation in the wiki under United_States/Tags to tag this as access=no + motor_vehicle=designated. However, searching with overpass turbo for the combination in the US, it appears that all the uses were tagging mistakes (at least all the uses I inspected were for bus stations, emergency access, etc.)

This begs the question whether this is even a valid tagging. I think some mappers may be avoiding it as it renders as a closed road in carto, and the discussion on the issue on Github suggests it may be incorrect (although this case was not discussed explicitly).

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The tagging seems ok for me, way is open only for motorized vehicles.

In Germany we tag this as foot=no + bicycle=no, because we have such a traffic sign, but none for “no non-motorized traffic”.

EDIT: we also have here what’s called a motorroad which may fit also for your case.

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For normal roads, the combination is redundant and nonsensical as roads assume motor_vehicle=yes already and adding access=no closes the road to everyone. If this for emergency use only, just use access=emergency so police, fire and other emergency vehicles can get though. Another common case is access=official for those with specific permission to use the the road.

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Yes, but it ain’t a normal road.

official is not a approved value for access.

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I think it’s wrong. Access=no and anything_else=yes is contradictory. Better to use motor_vehicle=yes, foot=no, bicycle=no

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No, it’s just the way the osm access-hierarchy is working.

Citation:

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Most of you examples have roadwaus that don’t allow nomal motor vehicles. Why not use the specific transportation highway tag. In this case just use highway=busway.

@IanH I believe you misunderstood the use case for this tagging combination. I am referring to roads which are signposted for “no non-motorized traffic”, meaning anyone can go there (in a motor vehicle). These are usually motorway-like (i.e. expressways).

It might be insufficient in yor case, but there is a tag with similar meaning:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:motorroad
Maybe it works out for you?

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“access=no + motor_vehicle=yes”

it is valid, but unusual and tricky so may be shown as restricted access in primitive data display checking just access tag

foot=no + bicycle=no + horse=no + maybe extra tags is a potential option, which may be less surprising in actual use, but I am not strongly advocating it

(note access=no foot=designated used on some footpath in UK)

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@Robert46798 I believe motorroad=yes is invalid in the US (at least I’ve been told so, since the US has no equivalent to the motorroad sign).

Nonetheless, motorroad=yes has some use in the US: overpass turbo and usage appears to be somewhat more consistent to mean “motor vehicles only” (but again this might be abusing the motorroad=yes tag).

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As an American I’m not even sure I really understand what a motorroad is. Most roads here are assumed to allow cars. Bicyclists and pedestrians can share those with lower speed traffic at thier own risk. Then there paths that are designated for pedestrians, bicyclists, and maybe smaller motorized vehicles.

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As an American I’m not even sure I really understand what a motorroad is.

it is similar to a motorway a road that excludes pedestrians and bicycles and similar slow vehicles, but legally it is not a motorway, and it may have at grade intersections etc.

There is always an issue in these discussions because it is assumed that legislation has some kind of hierarchy that easily maps to OSM access tags. While access=no motor_vehicle=yes could be right, what is really necessary as a 1st step is to determine to which vehicles “no non-motorized traffic” applies and if the OSM motor_vehicle adequately models that.

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Rather unhelpfully, as the value of access=* rather than foot=* determines the rendering of a highway=footway in OSM Carto. It usually seems to be new iD users who don’t realise that they don’t have to fill all of the fields under the “Allowed Access” heading. Sometimes it looks like more like troll tagging for the renderer.

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The access value rendering in osm-carto is not fit for purpose (and not just for footways) and I have argued in the past that we would all be better off (because it wouldn’t reward wrong tagging) if it was simply dropped.

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this, or make it much more complex, so that it can for example understand that access=no can by overridden with more specific access tags (but this would likely also mean to visually distinguish more cases and modes of transport and get rid of the car-centric rendering, which would mean almost a revolution and is not so likely to happen).

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Or make it cleaner without contradictory/overriding access tags.
I prefer this (from Tag:highway=path - OpenStreetMap Wiki)

Only use the general access=* key when an access restriction applies to all transport modes. If only specific transport modes are forbidden, for example…

But maybe that’s too logical for OSM :slight_smile:

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I prefer this (from Tag:highway=path - OpenStreetMap Wiki)

Only use the general access=* key when an access restriction applies to all transport modes. If only specific transport modes are forbidden, for example…

But maybe that’s too logical for OSM

for the avoidance of doubt, I also prefer this, but there is a lot of data that doesn’t follow it, hence the issue

From discussions on that wiki’s talk page and elsewhere, I got the impression that motorroad corresponds to the Vienna Convention sign for “same rules as a motorway”. That sign is mainly about access restrictions but apparently also carries some additional restrictions, depending on what the country regulates on motorways. The U.S. doesn’t have an analogous legal mechanism that relies on an analogy.

In the U.S., motorroad originally saw some use as mappers looked for ways to denote expressways. But the expressway standards (if you can call them that) generally aren’t tied to access restrictions or other traffic laws. expressway is a more direct key for indicating an expressway, but it needs to be paired with access tags.