Private Roads vs **PRIVATE** Roads

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Ok - so bear with me here as I’d like to have a discussion on the various types of “Private” roads and OSM.

I just finished Wayne, NJ (yay me!). Within Wayne and a lot of other surrounding towns in NJ, we’ve been building a ton of developments that have one road into the development but no guardhouse. Most will have a sign saying “Private development” or “No Trespassing” but, unless someone is being stupid, no one would likely question a person running on the streets.

A second “Private” is the streets that I’ve run in Boonton, NJ where a street shows as public on Google and OSM. Yet, when I arrive, a small section in the middle of a loop has a sign stating “Private Road”.

A third “Private” is the development with Guard Booths. Most of these allow you to run by and the guards only bother with vehicular traffic. Sometimes these have unguarded remotely triggered gates at various locations where you can sneak in.

A fourth today was a street that is clearly accessible but has a city issued “Private” at the top of it.

All of this is background for the question(s) - How do you all handle this? Do you run them? Mark them manually? Mark them as private in OSM? Has anyone ever had the police called on them?

For me, on the odd occasion I’ve been stopped or questioned, I tend to play dumb. 99% of the time, they let me run through. I tend to play it by ear whether or not to mark the streets as “private” depending on my gut feeling.

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Hi Jason, congrats on Wayne :100:
Regarding PRIVATE roads, to complete Sheffield :united_kingdom:, I wasn’t prepared to be put off by signs, so I followed postal workers through codelocked gates, nipped in behind cars, slipped over walls at night, climbed security fencing or put Hi-Viz & riggers on to walk through construction sites. It all added to the fun and raised the adrenaline!

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If a road is clearly private, with sign and sometimes even a gate of some sorts, Mark the street as private in OSM and you are not seeing it in CS anymore after the next update.

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I try to run anything that I can “safely” run. I have climbed gates, snuck in behind cars, etc. to gain access. The only time (so far) that I have had an issue was a short, non-gated, private road (with a sign indicating it as being such), where a lady working in her yard starting yelling at me as I ran by. I have turned around on a few where the No trespassing, Private Road signs looked like there was a high likelihood of getting shot if I proceeded further.

I make a lot of OSM edits to make sure that private roads are properly tagged for the next CityStrider.

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In OSM, a “private” sign alone doesn’t necessarily mean the street should be marked as private. OSM documentation says this, which I believe good guidance:

Note that it [access=private] notes access, not ownership. Many privately owned roads are freely accessible for the public without prior permission- in such case access=private would be wrong and it may be access=permissive if the owner can revoke this permission at their own discretion.

For little residential areas (like townhouse complexes) that say “private” (very common in my city), but are un-gated and clearly fully accessible by anyone, I do not mark private. For physically gated residential areas, I do. As for the case of “roads” on clearly private land; I guess the implication is “would the owner have reasonable grounds to call the police, and would they care?”

I have jumped lots of gates and run around in the dark in my day, certainly more fun, but nowadays I just try to make sure OSM is as accurate as possible.

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I’ve found that long private farm lanes were the worst for this sort of thing. The only time someone stopped me was when I was clearly running on her farm, and farm access is pretty restricted in the name of “bio-security”. She also had some serious farm dogs, so it wasn’t the best break-in, on my part. We chatted for a bit (she was pissed) and I left.

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After nearly 6 years of CityStriding I did have my closest call yet with tresmapping earlier this year in the spring. Here is the activity for those curious: Kevin Pels's activity on February 22, 2025 - CityStrides

A nineteen mile long run had taken me to the Atlantic coast and a desolate, tiny little beach accessed via a marked trail that had involved a very wet and muddy descent. I planned a more relaxed pace cliff walk/run back to where I’d meet my family for lunch. Near the final part of the long descent to the beach I had passed a small fence with a big sign clearly reading “PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING”…with a well-worn path skirting around the last fencepost. I had planned my route to go via the apparently private trail which was not marked private in OSM, so I had to decide between trespassing (not for any streets mind you, this was just a trail) or ascending the muck I’d just skidded down. I opted for the absolutely gorgeous cliffside trail hugging the coast and the amazing views. I can’t emphasize enough how remote this path was, so I’ll include a picture:

Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 21.25.05
Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 21.25.05876×1362 125 KB

About a mile in, I could see up ahead in the distance a lone older gentleman bestriding the narrow path, facing towards me…like he’d been expecting me. As I approached I greeted him cheerily but quickly realized he was there to obstruct me and tear me a new one (in Portuguese). First I asked him if I could continue toward my destination, the next beach town. He refused incredulously, repeating that I was trespassing and had broken the law. I switched tactics and got indignant and asked him why he didn’t have anything better to do on a Sunday morning than harass runners, to which he then threatened to call the police, pulling out his phone and everything. Exasperated, I gave up and apologized and asked him what he wanted me to do, which finally flummoxed him. He sputtered a bit more about how terrible I was before finally pointing me to a cut-path that could take me back to the public road. I apologized a final time and got the hell out of there, and cut back onto the cliffside path at my first opportunity, apparently back on a public section…

Later I’ve learned that apparently only one section of the cliffwalk is private property and only became such sometime after 2022, according to comments on this route - in which other people indicate they were escorted off the path! Perhaps some guy bought it just to be a troll!? As I can’t determine where the private property begins or ends, I don’t know how I should change it in OSM.

Anyways, I’m gonna keep tresmapping because that wasn’t all that bad after all :sweat_smile:

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Love the discussion and the story @kevincharlespels . I had something similar although much less scenic on a dead end where a homeowner kept telling me her clearly public road (since verified with the town) was private. She lived at the end of the dead end which was no more than 0.1 miles long.

In response to several of you that commented, I also will run through most “private” roads using discretion and judgement as guiding principles. I’ve also jumped over or climbed under my fair share of fences. In most cases, very few people have ever confronted me or questioned my presence.

I also consistently contribute back to OSM - I like the guidance on “Private” streets as designated by OSM @supermitch although doesn’t that just still muddy these waters.

Based on the comments above, I think I can distill out a couple themes:

  1. For ungated developments with “Private” or “No Trespassing” signs, these are cautiously fair game. Be respectful and generally people will assume you live there. I usually carry the excuse of “I am looking at moving into the neighborhood and wanted to check out the area” in my back pocket (just in case).

  1. The sections of streets with explicit and highly visible warnings should generally be avoided and marked as either “permissive” or “private” in OSM.

  2. For gated communities, strap on the “fast” shoes and tag in behind a car. Be prepared to be turned away or find a homeowner within the community willing to gain access.

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I don’t jump gates/fences, but for the ones without gates… what I will do is print a copy of the surrounding completed streets, so when stopped, I can explain what I’m doing and show that the street in question once completed will finish the area and they’ll never see me again.

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I’ve found that long private farm lanes were the worst for this sort of thing.

Very much this. I’ve completed one city that had quite a few of these semi-marked roads. Some were marked as “private” but still “felt” like a public road - I didn’t have many qualms about running on those. Some were completely unmarked and very much felt like a private driveway. I even double checked with county GIS that they were, in fact, public right-of-way. They were. But if someone would have come out and questioned me, it would have been a very uncomfortable conversation.

I find that the longer I do this, and the older I get, my risk tolerance for trespassing keeps going down.

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I had an “interesting” experience quite recently. I’d planned a run which included a small loop road in a new development (in Sydney NSW) and I noticed on a final check before I went out that the road was no longer noded. Odd, I thought, but I ran there and it all seemed open enough, so ran the loop (only a few hundred metres) and when I got back to the entrance a large sliding gate had shut behind me! I hadn’t even noticed it on the way in, and had an awkward climb to get out over it.

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Hi Jason. Congrats on Wayne. I’m from there originally!

I find many “private road” signs are bogus. Check the town map to see if the homes are on individual parcels, and if so, that generally means the roadway is public. If the entire complex is one parcel, then that usually means it is private property. There still can be some implied public access even in that case though, so I’d follow the signage at that point. Then edit OSM accordingly. Good luck!

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Just on the topic of private roads, how do people feel about roads that are tagged as access=destination in OSM?
There is one in an area I’m about to complete that appears to be a retirement type village. I’m very wary of trespassing, even if I feel I’m unlikely to be challenged. I’d much rather fix up OSM so others don’t need to either.

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While I haven’t seen that personally, my understanding is that “access=destination” is in reference to vehicular traffic; not pedestrian. e.g. No Thru Traffic

If the development has access between residential streets or around a traffic light, then that’s likely the reason for the designation.

On the other hand, nodes marked “Access=Destination” that are truly “restricted” should be marked as such - for example, streets or paths behind a security checkpoint in an airport.

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IMHO the handling of private roads in OSM is poor and very confusing.

In the UK there are plenty of roads (usually cul de sacs) that say “Private Road” but there are no physical restrictions. I think that basically means maintenance of the road is not in public hands. I believe this is where the “ownership=private” tag is probably more relevant than access=private. If I “draw” a new private road like this I now tend to set ownership=private but leave access as the default access=all.

Then they are similar “Private Roads” that have clear resident only parking signs where you can freely enter on foot but best not park there and nip to the shops etc etc for fear of a fine and/or clamping ! I would view them as motor_vehicles=private Less clear otherwise.

Then there are roads with a gate that is usually locked and whether you can open the gate or not “on demand” I might “try” to run them but the access is clearly private for all and I would mark them as private on OSM especially if I could not get in!

Then there are roads with security guards at the entrance that the other day I managed to slip past, tick off a few roads that were not marked as private on OSM but on getting near the exit, a guard took great delight calling me back and telling me you can’t run in here and not to do so again! Fortunately I had ticked them all off anyway! I marked them all as private on OSM to stop any other Striders being told to b***er off in the future!

Then there are private estates with barriers for cars but pedestrians are not physically restricted and often such places are full of pedestrians and who knows if they live there or not and so have some implicit “permission”. Some of them (including one I did last night) actually have some rights of way within them and this one even along one of the main roads but technically if you take a turn of it you should not. Some of these “private” roads off this “public” road are marked access=all on OSM as nobody has taken the trouble to change the default. As I found they were freely accessible I ticked them off (and very pleasant too) but do I now go and “correct” OSM as really it needs consistency. You can’t have a “public” road only accessible via a private one. But then I would “lose” some streets :slight_smile:

Personally then there ought to be clearer levels of “private” - technically in private ownership but no real issue accessing and “fully” private where the public are “prevented” from accessing full stop.

The guidance on OSM I find can be contradictory.
Key:access - OpenStreetMap Wiki says “Public access is not allowed. Access is granted with individual permission only.”

That is somewhat more “strict” than Tag:access=private - OpenStreetMap Wiki which says
Note that access=private is intended to indicate that access is restricted , not whether the object is privately owned or not. Use ownership=private or operator:type=private to record this kind of status.

So practically, I only mark up a road on OSM as private if indeed I was “restricted” in entering it either by a gate or an irate security guard.

If I see a road marked as access=private that I view more as ownership=private I tend to leave it as is unless it is clearly a “thoroughfare” at least on foot - say if a public footpath emerges onto it.

access=destination I don’t really “like” as view it as a bit non standard and you could argue all cul-de-sacs whether clearly public or not are for the purpose of accessing/visiting a house on there as who really runs up a dead end for the fun of it other than us :slight_smile: