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<p>Hi Jens,<br>
<br>
As far as I know, a `motorway` is a road **with control of
access**, i.e. this is a legal designation. If there is a traffic
sign which forbids the use of non-car traffic, it should be mapped
as motorway. This is very well defined and very clear to survey
and thus clear to map. On the wiki, there is a table indicating
which traffic signs are used for this worldwide: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dmotorway">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dmotorway</a>.<br>
This implies that simple asphalt road with e.g. only 1 lane in
every direction but with the "only accessible to cars"-traffic
signs <i>is</i> a motorway - something I can see happening e.g.
in the outback of Australia.<br>
<br>
> My standpoint is that cycleway=expressway shows a physical
way of building a cycleway, in the same way that highway=motorway
is a physical way of building a carriageway. This is principally
independent from how such a road belongs to the road network, but
of course the higher standards are used for the most important
roads, so there is a high correlation in most areas.</p>
<p><br>
The <i>way of building</i> is mapped by having geometries of
traffic interchanges (and motorway-link-tags), having maxspeed,
surface tags, bridge tags, ...<br>
<br>
<br>
> The problem with "mapping the physical properties of the
road" is: how would you map design speed, line of sight, curve
radius, turning lanes, no level crossings, etc. in a way that an
OSM data consumer (like a map renderer or a routing engine) could
conclude "This is a high quality cycleway" and "This is a lower
quality cycleway"?<br>
If you tried to use the same argument on highway=motorway, how
would you map it if you were to only "map the physical properties
of the road"?<br>
<br>
How are these things currently mapped? I'm breaking them down on
how they can be handled:<br>
</p>
<p>- The maximum allowed legal speed is mapped with `maxspeed` and
can be applied on cycleways too. In some legislations (e.g.
belgium) a `highway=cycleway` implies a maxspeed of 30km/h; even
though in some places a lower maxspeed applies and is indicated
with traffic signs.<br>
- The `design speed` is mostly irrelevant for OSM. First of all,
this is hard to survey in the field. Second, it is only a number
that some engineers set up.<br>
- line of sight and curve radius: can be calculated from the
geometry of the road and/or based on other objects. Furthermore,
this is hard to survey.<br>
- no level crossings: again, can be calculated by iterating over
the cycleway and checking if crossings exist<br>
- Turning lanes are extensively discussed on the wiki and can be
applied onto cycleways as well: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:lanes">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:lanes<br>
</a></p>
Other stuff you mention on the wiki:<br>
- "At least two lanes": use lane tagging<br>
- Lanes wide enough: use `width`-tagging<br>
- Limited access: use `foot=no`; `motor_vehicle=no` instead<br>
- "no or very few at-grade crossings with other road classes (such
as carriageways)": can be derived from the geometry. Furthermore,
what is "very few"? Is this 2 crossing/km? 5crossings/km? 10
crossings between important destinations? What if the crossings are
controlled?<br>
- Gentler slopes: use `incline`<br>
- Turning lanes: use turning lane tagging<br>
- Right of way: there is tagging or that as well<br>
- "Well lit": use "lit=*"<br>
<br>
In other words, <i>all</i> of the needed items can be tagged
separately and step-by step in a non-ambiguous way. If you need to
know which cycleways are up to a certain standard, you can do this
with a geoquery. It is up to the data consumers to choose what makes
something an `expressway` to them. <br>
<p>Another problem I do have with this proposal is that it is gonna
be very hard to create an "express-way"-definition that is
somewhat applicable worldwide and is easy to apply. For example,
what in Belgium is considered a high-quality "cycle highway" is
considered a normal cycleway in the Netherlands. <br>
The definition in your email is "a cycleway that is built to a
significantly higher standard than a regular cycleway."<br>
What is a `regular cycleway`? How wide should it be? What surface
should it have?<br>
And what is a `significantly higher standard`?<br>
What happens if - over the years - all regulary cycleways are
upgraded to higher standards, but the original expressway isn't
upgraded? Should all the regular cycleways get an expressway-tag
as well? Or should the original expressway lose its tag then?<br>
At what point does this happen?<br>
</p>
<p>And then I'm not even touching upon real-world difficulties. What
if such an expressway is only half constructed? What if a
non-level crossing will only be built in a few years? Road quality
_will_ differ along the road in real-world cases. In Belgium, the
cycle highways are sometimes mixed traffic, sometimes
cyclestreets, sometimes high quality separate cycleways. Some
municipalities give right of way to the cyclists, others to the
cars crossing<br>
Belgium is an excellent example, where `Fietssnelweg` precisely
means the `route relation`, <b><i>not</i></b> a certain standard
of building as this is sometimes not possible.<br>
<br>
The <i>intent</i> of the people building it is irrelevant to OSM;
only the physical result of their actions is.<br>
<br>
> "This is a high quality cycleway" and "This is a lower
quality cycleway"</p>
<p>I'd like to point out two logical fallacies here. The first one
is that there are many nuances in cycleway quality, it's not just
a binary choice between "high" and "low" quality.<br>
</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is a huge difference in preferences of
cyclists. Some will want to take the cycle highway to get to their
job quickly, others will shun away from it and prefer the quieter,
more scenic routes.<br>
A desirable route for one cyclist might be horrible for another
cyclist. With the company I work at, we went quite far in defining
multiple aspects to a road (expected, speed, feeling of safety,
feeling of comfort, ...) to mix and match this in different
profiles. See
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://github.com/pietervdvn/AspectedRouting/blob/master/BuildingAProfile.md">https://github.com/pietervdvn/AspectedRouting/blob/master/BuildingAProfile.md</a>
for more info.<br>
</p>
<p>So, to sum it up: the definition is redudant and very hard to
formalize, will encounter many edge cases. For someone like me,
who has a ton of experience creating route planners and editing
tools, such a tag is very hard to interpret.</p>
<p>(This being said: sorry for being so hard on you. Coming up with
good tagging is extremely hard and time-consuming, so I hope I
don't discourage you. I do appreciate the effort you are making
though)<br>
</p>
<p><br>
Kind regards,<br>
Pieter<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2022-08-04 17:14, Jens Glad Balchen
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:00da12b7-7165-157f-9638-14e637f9d285@saint-etienne.no">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
Hi Pieter.<br>
<br>
It seems to me that there is some confusion as to what a "cycle
highway" and "cycle expressway" is. Perhaps if I try to explain
what I read, it will be more understandable. <br>
<br>
It seems you are arguing from a standpoint that a "cycle highway"
is primarily a road network classification -- i.e. "this road
belongs to a cycle network and this cycle network is our main
network of cycleways and we call it the cycle highway network",
and of course this road network classfication also carries some
assumptions about road quality, but are not linked 100%, so you
will find varying degrees of road quality on the cycle highway
network.<br>
<br>
My standpoint is that cycleway=expressway shows a physical way of
building a cycleway, in the same way that highway=motorway is a
physical way of building a carriageway. This is principally
independent from how such a road belongs to the road network, but
of course the higher standards are used for the most important
roads, so there is a high correlation in most areas.<br>
<br>
Therefore, it seems to me that the two tags represent very
different information about a road and should be able to exist at
the same time.<br>
<br>
So a cycleway can be tagged with a relation with your
cycle_highway tag to represent your cycle network information, and
with my cycleway=expressway to represent the road quality, and one
tag does not imply that the other tag exists.<br>
<br>
The problem with "mapping the physical properties of the road" is:
how would you map design speed, line of sight, curve radius,
turning lanes, no level crossings, etc. in a way that an OSM data
consumer (like a map renderer or a routing engine) could conclude
"This is a high quality cycleway" and "This is a lower quality
cycleway"?<br>
If you tried to use the same argument on highway=motorway, how
would you map it if you were to only "map the physical properties
of the road"?<br>
<br>
I'm very open to hearing your opinion on that, because I have also
thought that this could be a better principle; I just don't see
how it's possible.<br>
<br>
Jens<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 04.08.2022 16:49, Pieter Vander
Vennet wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:a4a89e34-a21d-8889-f2e0-d29218160357@posteo.net">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<p>Hi,<br>
<br>
We did extensive mapping in Belgium of the cycle expressways.<br>
However, for the Belgian situation, introducing a new tag
would <b>not</b> work and only complicate matters (especially
because quite some parts are _not_ built up to code yet).
Instead, mapping the physical properties of the road is better
in combination with a relation, where the _relation_ indicates
the cycle highway.<br>
</p>
<p>See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:cycle_network%3DBE-VLG:cycle_highway"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:cycle_network%3DBE-VLG:cycle_highway</a>
for more information and a worked out, in use tagging scheme.<br>
<br>
Kind regards,<br>
Pietervdvn<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2022-08-03 23:52, Jens Glad
Balchen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:d8e7d88d-8782-c299-55b0-b0acc630d952@saint-etienne.no">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
Hi everyone.<br>
<br>
I propose a new value <tt dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"
style="background:#EEF;font-size:1em;line-height:1.6"><bdi
style="white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:cycleway"
title="Key:cycleway" moz-do-not-send="true">cycleway</a></bdi>=<a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:cycleway%3Dexpressway&action=edit&redlink=1"
class="new" title="Tag:cycleway=expressway (page does not
exist)" moz-do-not-send="true"><bdi>expressway</bdi></a></tt>
meaning a cycleway that is built to a significantly higher
standard than a regular cycleway.<br>
<p>Cycle expressways are becoming increasingly common across
Europe. They are distinctly higher quality cycling roads
compared to regular cycleways, equivalent to motorways for
cars. <tt dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"
style="background:#EEF;font-size:1em;line-height:1.6"><bdi
style="white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway"
title="Key:highway" moz-do-not-send="true">highway</a></bdi>=<a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dcycleway"
title="Tag:highway=cycleway" moz-do-not-send="true"><bdi>cycleway</bdi></a></tt>
currently captures the basics of a cycleway, and adding <tt
dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"
style="background:#EEF;font-size:1em;line-height:1.6"><bdi
style="white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:lanes"
title="Key:lanes" moz-do-not-send="true">lanes</a></bdi>=*</tt>,
<tt dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"
style="background:#EEF;font-size:1em;line-height:1.6"><bdi
style="white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:foot"
title="Key:foot" moz-do-not-send="true">foot</a></bdi>=<a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:foot%3Dno"
title="Tag:foot=no" moz-do-not-send="true"><bdi>no</bdi></a></tt>,
or <tt dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"
style="background:#EEF;font-size:1em;line-height:1.6"><bdi
style="white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:width"
title="Key:width" moz-do-not-send="true">width</a></bdi>=*</tt>
can provide additional detail on the quality of the
cycleway, but there are no tags to capture the complete
meaning of a road being a cycle expressway. </p>
<p>The definition is formalised in Norway as
"sykkelekspressveg", in the Netherlands and Belgium as
"Fietssnelweg", in Sweden as "supercykelväg", and in Denmark
as "cykelsupersti". The term "expressway" generally means
the highest grade of highway and captures all of these
definitions and terms. </p>
See the details of the proposal here:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/cycle_expressways"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/cycle_expressways</a><br>
<br>
Please discuss this proposal on its Wiki Talk page.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Jens<br>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
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