Hello _BAR_,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to me with your concerns.

I highly recommend that trail builders and other advocates you know join the OSM Trails Working Group. The group consists of multiple stakeholders including government organizations, land managers, parks agencies, and app developers and are working on issues similar to those you’ve described. This group would be the place to advocate for structural changes to OSM data, a new policy and/or tagging schema for trails that may be considered secret, and how that data is used within outdoor navigation apps.

https://openstreetmap.us/news/2021/12/osmus-trails-working-group/

You could start with a discussion within the #trails channel on this Slack workspace.

https://openstreetmap.us/get-involved/slack/

One of the main initiatives to come out of the working group so far is a tagging schema for unsanctioned and informal trails. What they have come up with is to display those trails with significantly less emphasis and sometimes prevent routability based on various criteria. Currently both AllTrails and GaiaGPS are piloting this approach with results being closely monitored within a few study areas. You can see an example of this with the trails in the Boulder Creek area of the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve and in the old CPTA trials trails in təmtəmíxʷtən/Belcarra Regional Park.

I also recommend you open a discuss topic on the matter within a local mountain bike forum such as:

https://nsmb.com/forum/forum/the-shore-3/ 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1025689240817931

I recommend guiding the discussion to include topics like open data, closed data & proprietary lock-in, user safety, emergency service (BCWS, SAR, Fire Rescue, …) considerations, environment & development pressures, land manager positions, and social & health impacts. I also recommend asking users for a defined repeatable method for how to determine whether a trail should show up on a map (that isn’t just asking the legacy builder/maintainer) that could be presented to the Trails Working Group.

Thank you, eerib