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

[Jeroen Hoek]

On 03-08-2022 11:18, Jens Glad Balchen wrote:
> On 03.08.2022 10:59, Jeroen Hoek wrote:
>> Have a look at this typical Dutch situation:
>>
>> https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1426041,5.7397237,3a,75y,228.33h,88.04t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAhezo74J5tsgo0u0mM-oNQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 
>>
>>
>> On the right, a road, on the left, a compulsory cycleway. Dutch law 
>> says that pedestrians must use the cycleway here (and they may walk on 
>> its hard surface), and may not use the shoulder of the road because 
>> the (much safer) cycleway is there. So the road gets 
>> foot=use_sidepath, and the cycleway has no foot value (because the 
>> Dutch default access tags have foot=yes for highway=cycleway), or 
>> foot=yes.
>>
>> So you are saying that in Norway, in a case like this, pedestrians can 
>> choose to use the shoulder of both the road and the cycleway?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> There are no compulsory roads of any kind in Norway, and the only 
> mandate is the one for pedestrians that I quoted. Everything else is 
> based on explicit prohibition.

Ideally, navigation tools should be able to choose the best option based 
on tags present without denying access to road users who can legally use 
it. In terms of tagging you can choose to simply set foot=yes on both 
road and cycleway (either directly, or implied via the default access 
values for Norway), and then let navigation aids apply their own logic. 
Often, when faced with equally long paths where one is highway=primary 
and the other is highway=cycleway, navigation aids will penalize the 
primary road for pedestrians, and choose the cycleway. Similarly, when 
faced with a parallel highway=footway and highway=cycleway, pedestrian 
navigation tools usually choose the footway if it is not much longer, 
even if you are allowed to walk on both.

You can, potentially, further aid navigation tools by mapping shoulder=* 
and/or verge=* (as appropriate) as well (in particular where 
sidewalk=no). This can help navigation tools further penalize roads that 
lack a hard shoulder.

foot=discouraged is tricky. The foot=* key is an access value that 
permits or allows usage. The 'discouraged' value tries to do what many 
think should be done via other more objective tags (like shoulder=*, 
verge=*, sidewalk=*, etc.), and it is often seen as too subjective.