The routing for a car/truck correctly goes on the curvy Route 31, but a mountain bike or road bike are given a straighter route to the west of the curvy route. The straight/western route is not appropriate for any non-foot traffic that doesn’t know what they’re getting into… it’s ridiculously steep/slippery/dangerous. It’s not wrong to route car/bike/motorcycle over the road if specifically requested, but you’d never want to route it otherwise.
The only time I’ve ever seen a motor vehicle on the road was when I was challenging myself to try to ride it by bicycle. I’ve climbed 32% grades before, but this was too difficult… I kept falling back off the bike. Then along came a pair of gray-haired ladies coming down the thing in a tiny car, just barely fitting between the weeds, looking scared out of their minds. The only thing more white than their hair was the driver’s knuckles.
Is there a way I can encode this at OpenStreetMap, so that the route is highly discouraged for non-foot traffic?
Legally, it’s an open public road, but you’d have to be crazy (or looking for a serious challenge) to try it by bike/car. A dirt bike could probably climb okay, but descending… I cringe at the thought.
Thanks for the suggestions. When you say “dangerous grade value”, what do you mean? The wiki link seems to refer to road surface material. The road already has an “incline:20%” tag.
When you say “dangerous grade value”, what do you mean?
Sorry I meant the sac_scale. So the road is bad just because of the steep incline/decline?
We do not recognize the incline tag as this is often not much different to our elevation data and they would conflict then. Probably we should at some point discourage bikes from this …
No, if it were just the incline it’d be no problem… it connects just to the south to a 21% grade road that’s well traveled by bikes and cars and small trucks.
It’s also very narrow… a small car and a bicycle can not pass without the bicyclist stopping and leaning against the side of the heavy grass/slope that lines the road. I know this from experience. (But on the other hand, cars are very rare there.)
But the worst aspect is the road surface. Like I said, I’ve done a 32% road before, and it wasn’t well paved, but it was so much easier than this road, which is perpetually covered in a slimy layer of wet moss and small pebbles. I have not had the guts to even try it while clipped in. (But just earlier today, I had no issues with a clean, well-paved 25% grade not far away.)
Any pedestrians going this general direction are mountain hikers and this road is much preferable compared to the well-trafficked curvy road to the east. But it would be best if vehicles are never routed on this road unless they explicitly ask.
It’s almost to the point that it might be better, practically speaking, to classify it as an “Unmaintained Track Road”.
Yes, ratrun, that’s the road. It is fully paved, but it has not been cleaned in years (decades?), and the surface is covered in pebbles, sticks, lots of moss and leaves, etc.
Looking at “class:bicycle” (thank you for the links), it seems “-2” (use only to reach a destination) is the most appropriate. I’ll break the road up so that only the steepest part gets this.
karussell, practically speaking, “grade4” seems most descriptive, except the looseness is due to lack of cleaning rather than initial construction.