[Tagging] Shoulder and traffic indicator tags

[Daniel Tremblay]

I've posted a message in the newbies forum regarding my need.  Those who
responded suggested me to send the discussion to the tagging group.  So,
here I am.

My need is to give cyclists more info when preparing their rides on road
that are not cycleway (nor NCN, RCN, LCN).  I saw the tag "rtc_rate" but not
find it very intuitive.

My first thought was to document a little more some road by adding a
shoulder tag (yes, no) and a traffic indicator tag (low, moderate, high).
Both responders confirmed that those tags does not exist.  For my cycling
need, I would personnaly not go on a highway=secondary with no shoulder and
moderate to high traffic ...  But, even with high traffic, I might use that
road if there is shoulder ...  And, even without shoulder, I might go there
if the traffic indicator is low.

Excerpt from the answers received.  First from Ramey:

I don't think there is any formalized way to indicate traffic other than
> looking at the class of road, (residential, tertiary, secondary, primary,
> trunk, motorway).  I see many instances of a traffic key on tagwatch, with
> very complex values, but no idea what it's about, (e.g.
> traffic:hourly:23:Tu:winter:
> snow = 376/7:30)
>
> Again, if you have an idea about how to reasonably mark it up, (daily
> traffic volume, accident rate, etc) propose something for people to comment
> on.  I, myself, would like to have some way to mark up which streets are
> better for cyclists.  I know of a street near my home that is marked as a
> cycle route, but a 3 block stretch of it is so narrow that buses going
> through in opposite directions will wait for the other to go through before
> they proceed. So, it really does feel too narrow to be a good cycle route.
>

Second from Xan:

Daniel, I'm insterested in that. If you formalize it, please, alert me.
> I think it could be useful:
>      - shoulder={yes,no}
>      - shoulder:width=5 m
>      - shoulder:side={left,right,
> both}
>      - shoulder:line={continuous, dashed,....} (see [1])
>      - shoulder:access = [all the access] (in some countries, the
> shoulder is for emergency purposes, depending on highway pedestrians and
> biclycles could use it, in some countries it could be used for buses..)
>

So there is probably a legitimite need there ...

Considering Xan's answer, I realize that , if we want to formalize
something, we have to look at it broader (not sure of the english word here
:-).

On my side, I was looking at something lot more simplier.

So, if I come back to my little cyclist need, I wonder if I could simply put
cycleway=shoulder.  That would show that: there is a shoulder, it is large
enough to accomodate cycling, cycling is authorized on this road, shoulder
is not reserved for emergency, ...  With about the same logic in mind, I
could say cycleway=no_shoulder, meaning that that road is often used by
cyclists and the traffic is low enough for a relatively safe sharing of the
road between car and bicycle even if there is pratically no shoulder (I have
an example of that near my home).

As I am suggesting adding values to the cycleway tag, I still believe that
the shoulder indicator would be usefull ...

Any thought on this?


Daniel Tremblay
Quebec City
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