Temporary Status

General talk Tagging general discussion
1

Is there a fixed syntax, or a convention, on how to handle temporary status?
I have a trail that currently is blocked off since a part collapsed.
I assume this won’t be the case forever. An idea I had is something like fixme,
but that doesn’t really make sense. Ideas?

2

You could use a lifecycle prefix, changing highway to disused:highway if it’s going to be closed for months or years rather than weeks. It’s a good idea to also add note and check_date tags.

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3

highway=construction construction=path may be an option if there is active effort to fix it and rebuilt

4

If it’s less than a few weeks, probably not something to worry about.

The blockage could be mapped with access=no, changing to the construction tagging above when it’s being fixed.

If this situation persists for a longer time, I would go straight to abandoned:highway rather than disused, since the collapsed path isn’t usable in its current state.

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5

Cut off on whether to map or not is usually taken as being 6 months.

As this is a possible safety risk, I’d agree with access=no, together with a description= & a fixme=

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6

As noted by others, there are several approaches, and each have its own set of disadvantages.

E.g. if it is only going to be closed for a short time (e.g. few days), one may as well not do anything (or just open OSM note which might be noticed by some others)

Most notable problem in many of solutions is that unless someone relatively regularly re-checks it and updates it when it become passable again, it may end up as not being routable for many years even after it was repaired.

  • another approach that fixes that particular problem is using conditional restrictions.

    E.g. you may add access:conditional = no @ (2026 Jan 01-2026 Feb 07) to indicate it should not be accessible in that date range, but should automatically become accessible again after the end date (when you’re pretty sure it will be usable again).
    (if it is fixed in the meantime and you notice it, you can just remove that tag again).

    Of course, while it fixes that issue, it introduces other issues, i.e.:

    • one has to know (or more likely, guess) when it is (probably) going to be fixed
    • not all routers support conditional syntax

  • yet another approach is to take ownership of the problem – i.e. use some of the mentioned solutions to mark it as currently unusable (abandoned:highway, highway=construction, access=no, …), and then add an OSM note saying something like “This should be resurveyed when it is fixed #surveyme #remindme 2026-02-01” and rely on NotesReminderBot to notify you to recheck the situation on the ground.
    Of course, you could still forget to do it (or bot may malfunction), and then we’re back at square one. And also offline data consumers will only use the way again after they download the updated data (e.g. often on monthly basis).

So, as the saying goes, choose your poison :slight_smile:

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