Yeah there's definitely plenty of roads around that could have classifications improved. It's probably best if you think two roads are classed differently but seem similar, to evaluate both of them.

Definitely add surface tags to help with that, paved/unpaved are generic tags for a start, and then you can check out the Wiki page [1] for the more specific ones.

For adding the new path, the best way to do it ASAP is to ride it! See if you can get a GPS that can record tracks, or see if you can do it with your phone or a smartwatch, that'll give you a GPS trace that can be used as a starting point, and then over time if you do that a few times you can get a more accurate trace of the path and improve it further. Once it's on aerial imagery then it can be traced from there, but GPS recordings are going to be much quicker than waiting for imagery.

If you've ever got questions or want someone to double check your thinking, feel free to flick me a message on here, or jump over to the forums [2] or Discord [3], there's always plenty of people who are happy to help!

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface
[2] https://community.openstreetmap.org
[3] https://discord.gg/openstreetmap