Opened and closed barriers, abandoned tracks

J_Schneider · 2017-11-19T20:58:26.000Z

Hello,
I have been mapping a bit in the forest around my home town and I wonder how to handle some tracks and barriers.
I have realized that there are several forest tracks that have been taken out of use by the authorities, but more or less obvious.

Some tracks branch off from other tracks in the middle of the forest. They are interrupted by a big wooden gate (that is part of a fence around an area for wildlife protection) situated a few meters from the next crossing and locked with a chain. Behind the gate you can see that the track hasn’t been used or maintained for quite some time but it still exists and it is possible that the forest wardens might open it some time for their work purposes. When you go “around the block” where the track meets the next crossing track it is either closed the same way or in other cases barely visible any more because it has been destroyed by piling up wood and debris.
Some tracks branch off from a major paved road and have a lift gate after a few meters, closing it for cars. They are usually (intentionally) placed in a way that they can bypassed easily by cyclists and pedestrians.
- These gates are currently either opened or closed and locked. When they are opened, there might follow a parking lot and after that another barrier (opened or closed) and/or a sign closing the track for vehicle traffic except forestry.
- And some of the closed ones are placed in a way closing the whole width of the track that can not so easily be bypassed and it is obvious that the track behind them hasn’t been used for years. So it looks as if this is intended to stay like this.

[/*] So I wonder:

Is it possible to tag the state of a barrier (opened/closed)?
If so, does it make sense as this is (at least generally) only a temporary state which (at least theoretically) could change?
Whether the barrier itself can or should be tagged or not: What should a track be tagged if it physically still exists but is obviously out of use? I have read of the tag “inofficial” (or “un…?”) although I just can’t find it now on the wiki.

Only a few tracks have come so close to disappearance that I deleted them.
I know, we say “don’t tag for the renderer”, but I would like to tag in a way that e.g. routing engines don’t route where you can’t go and at least for general purposes it would in most cases be better not even to show the closed/abandoned tracks. I believe.
Any hints?

Best regards, Joachim

hadw · 2017-11-19T21:44:59.000Z

Most of this can done using access and things like foot, motor-vehicles, etc.

1 Don’t map transient states, however, if there is some logic, you can use opening_hours, either with the actual rules, or a free text summary, in double quotes. This can be extended to particular modes of transport using conditional access: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:access#Access_time_and_other_conditional_restrictions

3(1) access=private or access=forestry or access=no (both gate and track).

3(2)(b) Either micro-map the pedestrian bypass, or use vehicle specific access tags.