I know you're new, but the correct thing to do is to keep the road and change the lifestyle prefix, add barriers, and/or access levels depending on how it's closed/removed.

Otherwise people unfamiliar with the area come back and re-add it accidentally and we have to go through this again.

Properly tagged will prevent GPS systems from using it.

Do you know how it was closed?

Thanks. I work on (or at least investigate) a lot of random notes across the US. I'll try to keep it in mind if I find myself here again.

While the first instincts of many new mappers are to removed it, the approved approach is change the tags on it to accurately describe the road's state. (known as lifecycle prefixes)

osm.wiki/Lifecycle_prefix

access=no
Changed the highway type to destroyed:highway
or abandoned:highway

See:
destroyed:*=*

These are lesser known tags to new mappers. The reason we do this is it accurately describes the road, the access tag will prevent routers (gps systems) from using it.

The main reason we do this is it prevents future mappers from readding it without knowing the state

So I'd recommend you revert the change and add the tags. You can revert it here (https://revert.monicz.dev/ ) with the changeset/166997227.

None of this is obvious to new mappers or even shows up in the editor without manually editing the tags, so don't feel bad. Let me know if you need more help with it.

Sorry, I meant I'm not sure about the Eastern side. It might be scrub or already in development.

I was looking at ESRI which had the buildings for the gas station so it was newer. They cleared at least the Western half down to green tinted dirt which I assumed would become grass.

I was comparing the texture to the woods directly North and lack of significant shadows.

But to be honest I'm not 100% sure on the Western side, I just assumed they cleared it out to continue development.

I fixed the road classification to be consistent with OSM for you. You can choose service road for most parking lots roads.

Word of advice.

Don't split up parking lots into a bunch of tiny parking lots. If you were going out out of the building you'd think "These 5 spots are a parking lot?" No, you'd think the big rectangular section is one continuous parking lot. Sometimes there are "Lot A" and "Lot B" that should be split.

It makes it easier to tag ownership, renders a bit better, and in GPS systems it won't show up a 5 different parking lots.

You can turn parking lots into MP (multi polygons) if you really want to pull out components that you don't like, like the island/separators. You can also map individual parking spaces but I recommend doing that in JOSM with the gridify plugin.

Yes, OSM gets into a lot of tedious debates about what noun means and you'll run into classification debates like this constantly.

I stumbled upon this. Yes, the roads need work. I recommend you use the presets in JOSM for the road types. (Presents->Highways->Streets)

Here's some good rules of thumb for the smaller rural roads. If it has a street name, set it to residential.

If it doesn't have a name and goes to a building/property, set it to a driveway (set it to service and then you can change the service type to driveway).

If it looks like you need a 4x4 or offroad vehicle set it to track (Presents->Highway->Ways->Track).

If you really don't know, at least set it to a Road so at least people can drive on it. Presents->Highway->Streets->Road.

We can always reclassify roads in the future.

If you know the road is a private road, set the access=private tag. This prevents a lot of headaches for property owners.

I'm reverting your changeset to properly address the issue. Is a very common mistake to believe we only map public roads. I will be updating the roads with the correct tags to prevent navigational issue.

See here for the reasoning...
osm.wiki/Why_we_won%27t_delete_roads_on_private_property

changeset/165741720

Hi. I'm the mappers who worked on the intersections that CurlingMan pointed out.

Anybody who has seen my mapping knows I am a massive fan of smooth curves....where they're appropriate.

The problem with the curves you made in the intersection is that they make some routes look beautiful at the cost of others looking unnecessarily bad. When traffic flows in both directions, the convention is to compromise and use straight lines instead.

But it's more than just an aesthetic choice.

The navigational routers often weigh how sharp a turn is in their best route calculations and may incorrectly rule out the best route if the angles they meet at are too sharp.

Also when an intersection point is too far off from the actual GPS position it'll have more issues with where to snap the vehicle to the road. This is mainly a problem with very wide intersections.

Those extra constraints is what I was trying to address when reworking them.

Forgot to include, addresses were taken from the Albemarle County GIS.

Note is wrong, it should be note/4712548.

Thank you for bringing the ramp mistake to my attention, I have rectified it.

I'm aware you were having navigation issues with a nearby address, I'm sure routers where trying to incorrectly route through the alley instead of the driveway.

This was due to the driveway missing and some tags missing on the alley.

I have update the tags of this alley to be more consistent with the rest of OSM (while also trying to discourage routers from using it incorrectly. FYI, track is mostly just used on rural farmland plots.

Give it a few days (or a month) to take affect, if you still have navigation issues, reach out to me and I'll help you resolve them.

You're right. I've just been doing too much late night mapping. I have updated the tag.

Hi Jay, I see you've gotten into mapping. I have done a lot of mapping in the area as well (including this DMV).

These changes to DMV needs further work as the way you mapped it indicates that there are physical barriers between the lanes. This can end up confusing GPS systems as they might think you're in a lane that you're not and not realize you can still physically (although not legally) switch lanes.

So if you enjoy doing mapping there are two tags you should learn. The placement tag and the change tag.

change=*

The change lets you set the solid lines for the roads and is useful in a lot of situations like this.

Neither of these tags get visualized in the default web editor (Id) and honestly are easy to tag incorrectly without visualization, so most of us heavy mappers use JOSM with a plugin (Lane and Road attributes) to add and visualize them.

Let me know if you need any help.

Hello. We discussed this issue on the OSM discord. It falls into a grey area. Typically OSM doesn't like to close for construction unless the construction will take 6 months, but we also don't know the schedule.

This is cause items like GPS get updated infrequently and this area may continue to be avoided for years by them.

So as a compromise I had already updated the tags on the sections with the sinkhole to have a conditional tag stating no vehicle access for the next 2-4 months....which are just estimates based off news reports.

Of course this doesn't change any visual representation so it's easy to miss unless you literally know to go looking for it or watch the notes. Also most of the routers are ignoring this tag. GraphHopper was the only one respecting it.

I'm not saying what you did is wrong, knowing NJ construction schedules, it's probably right, all I ask you to do is monitor the two notes.

Is this the name of the track? I haven't seen a farm track with a name yet. The name may be better suited for the Owner tag.

owner=*

I noticed you placed some trees in the forest by I 287. While technically it's correct it gives the wrong impression of the area as have a sparse amount of trees, we have a landuse natural=wood which renders nicer.

Individual trees on grass is perfectly acceptable.

Based off the low edit count, I'm sure you were just learning the editor, but when you get a chance can you remove them and add the woods there instead?

Thanks. I haven't worked my way up to fix this area yet.

That relation should be fixed now.