[Tagging] Tagging cycleways to distinguish them from combined cycle and footways

[Niels Elgaard Larsen]

Jens Glad Balchen:
> Hello everyone.
> 
> The strict interpretation of this standard is that highway=cycleway by itself denotes 
> a cycleway, designated for cycling, where pedestrians have legal right of access. The 
> feedback from the few participating Norwegian OSM forum users, however, is that any 
> highway=cycleway should be regarded as a combined cycle and footway.

I disagree with that.

There is a big difference between a cycleway and a combined cycleway/footway.

It is true that you can walk on the side of most highways, except motorways and when 
signed with foot=no.

But when you meet a car, you have to get out of the way, you cannot just walk on the 
road and expect cars to not bother you too much, except on 
highway={pedestrian,living_street}

But on a combined, non-segregated cycle/footway you can stroll around, push a 
baby-carriage, let you children run, etc on the middle of the path, not next to it. 
Bicyclist will go slow and be careful if they see pedestrians.

On a real cycleway cyclist will go full speed and if you are lucky ring the bell or 
yell to get pedestrians out of the way.

You need to look turn you head and look back every few seconds if you walk on a 
cycleway in Copenhagen.

As an OSM user, walking or cycling, I want to know if am on cycleway or if I am on a 
combined way.

And cycleways often follow highways. So a router would need to know whether it should 
use the highway or the cycleway/combined way.

> I would like to hear any opinions from the OSM community on the issues below.

This sounds, not surprisingly, similar to the situation in Denmark.

If it is a real cycleway, tag it as highway=cycleway.

If it signed for both cycling and walking tag it as 
highway=path,foot=designated,bicycle=designated,segregated={yes,no}

If it just a path that can be used by pedestrians and cyclists, tag it as 
highway=footway,bicycle=yes


-- 
Niels Elgaard Larsen