I somehow found myself on your website and was horrified to see the subject listed as a “public” walking trail. I was a longtime Secretary of the Club and its property, am now a member of the Board of Directors, and have been and continue to be the person who tracks down and has removed anything that says the property is open to anyone in the public. I suspect that you somehow got your information from a governmental publication by the Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, more than decade ago which incorrectly listed our property as public access. After we got hold of the offending publication, we got a written formal apology from the Town leaders and legal counsel, and the Town destroyed all of the remaining publications. The Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General also got involved because the Club operates a legal firing range which intersects your “so-called” walking trail, and the legal ramifications for any organization – such as yours – which advocates public entrance could face severe legal problems. Since December 15, 1978, the Club has operated with conservation restrictions overseen by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which explicitly prohibits any public access for obvious reasons. Please remove the entire reference to the Cape Cod Beagle Club
Just to make sure, you are talking about this way currently mapped as highway=track?
Since it is rather well visible on aerial imagery, I propose to tag it as access=private. a) this is more correct, as there is a track and b) avoids that it gets re-added later on.
p.s. OSM does not advocate public entrance, we just map what is on the ground. Your legal threats are over the top. Couldn’t you just politely ask to change the tagging?
Adding to escada’s comments, the area of Cape Cod Beagle Club, within which this track is, has been mapped and tagged as access=restricted, ownership=private, protected=perpetuity. OSM mapping shows there is no public access to the area or track. This demonstrates OSM mapping has upheld your desire without being asked.
Wow, you sound nice.
I second the idea of marking the track/road as private on OpenStreetMap, plus putting the entrance gate on the map as an extra indication it’s not a public road.
Are you by any chance referring to this website (or something similar)?
https://www.mass-trails.org/landowners/capecodbeagleclub.html
While the map displayed on that page is based on OpenStreetMap data, the statement that the site contains 0.8 miles of public trails is not made by OpenStreetMap.
Ah, and would that page be ‘the entire reference’ to your club/area?
Then it has nothing to do with us at OpenStreetMap, you’ll have to contact the owner of that trails website.
Edit: I’ve added the access=private tag, and also shortened the track to the length where it’s the most visible.
The trails page should pick up that change and display 0.0 miles of public trail.