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

[Jens Glad Balchen]

On 03.08.2022 13:01, Jeroen Hoek wrote:
> On 03-08-2022 12:43, Jens Glad Balchen wrote:
>> The objection to tagging correct foot=* values is that OSM 
>> contributors in general are not able to or do not have the knowledge 
>> to do this correctly. The problem today is that foot=* does not 
>> accurately reflect the legal status. In that respect, if people tag 
>> with a traffic sign, it is likely that there will be conflicting 
>> foot=* values. E.g. traffic_sign=NO:520 + foot=designated. Map makers 
>> would have to chose which tag to believe.
>>
>> It is likely that only highway code afficionados will tag with 
>> traffic_sign, and only bother to tag where traffic_sign=NO:520, since 
>> traffic_sign=NO:522 would be the implied state. Therefore, I expect 
>> the number of conflicts to be low. For the same reason, it also has a 
>> high chance of surviving edits.
>> On the other hand, maintenance will be equally low.
>
> That's solved by presets though. In the Netherlands mappers who deal 
> with cycleways quickly picked up on the presets, and eventually you 
> just hit F3 + '522' and get the correct preset for '522: Gang- og 
> sykkelveg' (I do so for Dutch cycleways with 'G11' etc., and because 
> those traffic sign codes are part of each preset title, this just works).
>
> The data gets richer, because data consumers who care about access 
> values use foot=*, and data consumers who want to visualize cycling 
> infrastructure would use traffic_sign.
>
> It has an additional benefit: any cycleway that lacks a traffic_sign 
> tag is either a special case without signs (de facto cycleways), or is 
> simply missing tags. With presets, you can easily fix them by just 
> selecting the prefix, and have it enter foot=* and traffic_sign=* for 
> you. Much less thinking needed: just basic knowledge of what those 
> traffic signs are called.

I completely agree with everything you say. But if the underlying 
premise is correct that most contributors don't even know the basic 
difference between a cycleway, a footway, a sidewalk, and a combined 
cycleway/footway, then no presets will solve that, since people will 
invariably pick the wrong preset. And I see people tagging quite 
randomly even if there are presets in both editors today. For example, 
people tag a sidewalk with highway=cycleway, probably because they think 
it's OK to cycle there (and it IS legal), but why they didn't simply tag 
it as a sidewalk confuses me.

Most Norwegian cycleways at some point end up on a sidewalk, so 
contributors need to be strict and conclude the cycleway has ended, or 
they will make the same mistake...

That problem, though, is more general to everything about OSM and should 
not prevent us from trying to achieve higher quality, like you say.

It doesn't help that the Norwegian OSM community at some point decided 
that highway=path can only be used for hiking trails, and any 
constructed roads must be highway=footway or highway=cycleway, if not 
for cars. This means a distinction MUST be made, it's almost always made 
incorrectly :)

The traffic_sign proposal, with presets, seems like the best idea at the 
moment. Thank you for the input.

Cheers,

Jens