[Tagging] highway=cycleway vs highway=residential/service/etc.

[Raphael]

On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 at 17:31, Mike Thompson <miketho16 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Is a road that is now closed to motor vehicles, but is open to bicycles, highway=cycleway, or is highway=residential/service/etc. with the appropriate access tags?

In my opinion, neither really fits. Because it's closed for motor
vehicles, it's no longer highway=residential, but it's also too wide
for highway=cycleway. It would be good to have a highway=pedestrian
equivalent for bicycles – maybe highway=cycleroad?

There are similar roads in Bern, Switzerland: two former country roads
through a forest [1] [2] and a former residential road [3], that are
closed for motor vehcles (except for forestry use in the first two
examples). The fact that these roads are frequently re-tagged shows
that an appropriate tag is missing or that the situation at least is
unclear.

Best regards

Raphael (dafadllyn)

[1]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/453645540 (this is only part of
the whole road)
[2]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/58536404 (this is only a part
of the whole road)
[3]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/517489727