Key:cutting

An excavated section where the highway or railway is significantly lower than ground level.

See also Cut on Wikipedia.

Usage

Add cutting=yes to a way that is already tagged with highway=*, railway=* or (artificial) waterway=*.

The tag cutting=yes usually means that the original ground level is higher on both sides of the highway, railway or waterway. It is also possible to use cutting=left or cutting=right if the cutting is only on one side of the feature. In this case, cutting=left means that the original ground level is higher on the left side of the way.

The value cutting=both has also been used instead of cutting=yes by some mappers, to make it explicit that the original ground level is higher on both sides of the highway. The value cutting=hollow_way has also been rarely used for a sunken lane (or, hollow way, or holloway): an old road or track that is lower than the land on either side, but historic=hollow_way is more common.

Photos

• 

  A railway cutting in Helsinki.

• 

  A railway cutting in France.

• 

  A historic (100 AD) road cutting in Terracina, Italy.

See also

• barrier=coupure – An opening in a (flood)wall or levee (dyke) for a road or railway.
• barrier=retaining_wall – An upright artificial structure that holds back soil or rock.
• tunnel=* – A tunnel, an underground passageway.
• embankment=* – The opposite of a cutting, an embankment as property of a map feature.
  • man_made=embankment – An embankment as separate map feature.
• natural=cliff – A cliff, a vertical or almost vertical natural drop in terrain.
• natural=earth_bank – earth bank is an abrupt change in ground level which can be clearly distinguished from its surroundings
• natural=gully – small scale cut in relief created by water erosion
• historic=hollow_way – A hollow way, a path/way which has over time fallen significantly lower than the land on either side.
  • Proposed features/hollow_way
• Landform examples