So a private landowner can have a road they maintain, a private sign, but it’s not actually private unless they erect some form of physical barrier? The private-signed road outside my house, where certain residents who zoom down here get very tetchy towards geriatric dog walkers attempting to make use of it.

Of out of curiosity, when would you tag a road as access=private?

Don't you think that same convenience and simplicity should apply to the data users of OpenStreetMap? There’s a reason these highways are mapped as separate ways. Just wish the council's system had it like that too. They often only just deal with simple junction geometry.

I could just about accept highway=trunk_link for the straight-ahead per green arrow LED traffic lights here, since eastbound connects with highway=service.

You seem a bit confused. Adopted status is purely whether the highways authority maintains the road. Public highway has to be declared by the same government body and be in public ownership. Neither is the case here. Abels Close is not in the council’s list of streets, nor in their GIS.

A road once divided by a physical barrier is legally no longer a single road, by the way, but two or more. The on-the-ground eastbound signage shows the left/through lanes with white background fill and the right-turn lane with green for primary.

An unadopted, private road is not a public right of way, unless it is defined by the definitive statements (can be hinted at from the definitive map) as maintained by the county council. There is clearly an access rights case to indicate that this is not access=yes.

From a driver point of view on the Ring Road, however, now there's a sense of ambiguity where before there was clarity. Are you local to the area?

Sainsbury’s I’m sure would be proud that they have a trunk road direct to their store.

(I note you ignored my advice about discussion before deleting)

There’s literally a sign on this private road saying access is for 'residents only'. Does that sound like a public road to you? No physical barrier of course, but does not meet the third rule of the HCR case judge to permit a traffic order.

If you don't like access=private, how about access=residents?

(to be clear, unadopted, private-owned can’t - adopted status is independent of public/private ownership)

What are you talking about? maxspeed=none would not be inappropriate for roads with speed limits. Speed limits require both a Traffic Regulation Order and at least one circular specification-meeting sign at the boundary points. This short private development road will likely never show any sign requesting a lower speed. For now, like my own home road, it is without enforceable speed limit.

Legal status is perfectly clear. Adopted roads can have Traffic Regulation Orders, unadopted can't. Ergo no enforceable limit.

By all means stop deleting the tags of other users without consulting them too.

maxspeed=none is that explicit case in OSM. Legally there is no default limit on private land. Only driving without due care and attention as prosecutable minimum offence. Why double negative? adopted=no is sufficient given implicit default yes. Not not a not.

Abels Close is a non-adopted road, privately owned in some way by the residents or land owner. That's why there is no applicable speed limit here. Why I was right with maxspeed=none all those years ago. You could add adopted=no, maxspeed=no and be done with it. Occasionally such residents make up their own speed suggestion that they'd like visitors to adhere to.

They must have changed the sign since. Probably a misheard road name over the phone at the sign-makers originally :)

Alternatively sidewalk:surface, sidewalk:right:width, etc. style attributes on road itself.

I map on the basis of adding pavements when they detour away from the road edge and curb, connecting that back to the road for routing benefit. Just remember yourself to adjust sidewalk tags on the road to separate value or as appropriate when doing such micromapping. Those sidewalks tags already enabled routing agents to optimise for pedestrian safety. Adding partial sections with dead-ends isn't of much use to anyone, aside from more precise distance measurement I suppose. I'm all for it at complex intersections though with railings or other safety mechanical interventions.

Is there any point adding explicit pavements that run adjacent to roads already tagged with sidewalk=both? It just seems to add complexity and mess to the essential map modelling with little gain. I've just re-routed the local circular walk to make use of such though.