[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - cycle expressways

[Jens Glad Balchen]

On 08.08.2022 04:12, stevea wrote:
> Rather than sympathy (actually, IN ADDITION TO sympathy!) I believe I well-understand the natural gravitation towards cycleway=expressway, having hinted at strong correlations between highway=trunk (rather than highway=primary and/or highway=motorway) needing an expressway=* tag (often with value yes, sometimes with value no).  There are reasons for doing this to "make consistent the trunk network" (as, for example, we are in the process of doing to 2.5 km of Mission Street [1] in Santa Cruz, California — surrounded by expressway=yes on both sides, but explicitly expressway=no, yet/also likely to be "upgraded" from highway=primary to highway=trunk in the near future).  There are reasons for wanting, as does Jens for good reasons, to "denote high-performance bicycle infrastructure" by coining a somewhat-similar (yet different!) cycleway=expressway.
>
> We get it (well, some of us do, these are "chewy" topics — there are times and places where my eyes glaze over about distinctions between Norway and Belgium and I think I get it, but I'm not 100% sure).  But we appear to be in the beginning-middle of a lot of discussion about this so most or all of the wider world can be accommodated.  This is part of devising / implementing / using good tagging strategies so we "tag what we mean" because "we KNOW what we mean."  Knocking off the edges of fuzziness around these topics is difficult, but wider consensus can and does emerge.  Also, know that "super cycleways" are new in USA, Australia, Canada and "some" of Europe.  I'd say quite new, even "barely emerging."  I, for one, have my "eyes wide open" about this, and I coordinate routing (and good OSM tagging and route relation practices) on the OSM's USBRS data (like EuroVelo).
>
> Jens, I urge an approach I learned (while riding a bike as a child, especially around rail tracks):  "Stop, Look, Listen."  There is a lot of dialog, a lot of countries, a lot of approaches, a lot of voices, a lot of signage, a fair bit of confusion (though clarity does better emerge, for example, about distinctions between infrastructure tagging, as I believe this is, and route tagging, which does muddy the waters, but is quite distinct).  These need to harmonize.  I think we are in earlier-to-middle stages of that, but I'm not sure a proposal is ripe / mature for wide acceptance until more clarity is achieved.
>
> We make good progress so far, I do say again!  Let's not be too hard on ourselves for doing what is difficult and certainly is time-consuming.  This sort of work is necessary and pays dividends in the future with both clarity and "room to grow."
>

Thank you, Steve.

This proposal process is completely new to me, so that's always 
something, and I hadn't expected the massive confusion with cycle routes 
that has ensued -- or perhaps become visible is a more appropriate 
description, because it seems the confusion was always there.

I do appreciate that it will take some time to capture all the relevant 
nuances, and also time to perhaps learn to live with the nuances that 
must remain implicit.

I will try to write up a summary of the inputs so far to try and clarify 
where the proposal stands at the moment.

Cheers,

Jens