[talk-au] When is a road a cycle route?

[David]

I think what you say makes sense Ben, its pretty much the default OSM test, can you see it on the ground ?

What's not so clear to me is what you hope to achieve. Do you want to attach the (eg) lcn= to individual (qualifying) roads or bundle them together into routes ? The latter makes more sense IMHO and would be best done as a relation.

Be good to see the outcome of your deliberations appear on the Australian tagging guidelines page.

David
.

Ben Kelley <ben.kelley at gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi.
>
>I think we should specify a little more what constitutes a cycle route on
>the tagging guidelines.
>
>Some background: For the cycle map layer you can tag any way as a local
>cycle route (lcn=*), a regional cycle route (rcn=*) or a national cycle
>route (ncn=*). The tag can be applied to the way, or a relation can be
>defined. On the cycle map these ways are highlighted, and some routing
>engines use this information to route cyclists differently to other
>vehicles. (e.g. ridethecity.com)
>
>In some sense, any street or path you can ride a bike on is a potential
>"cycle route", but I don't think this makes it a cycle route in the OSM
>sense.
>
>I would reason that the way (streets especially) need some kind of marking
>(signs, or road markings such as painted bike symbols) to indicate that the
>arm of government who maintains that street has designated the street to be
>a cycle route, before we mark it as a cycle route in OSM. Does that seem
>reasonable?
>
>Where it gets more complicated is when we start to think what kind of
>marking we should expect to see on the ground before we say that this is a
>cycle route in the OSM sense. The same applies when deciding that some
>street is not really a cycle route.
>
>Note that I am not talking about a legal definition on whether you can ride
>a bike there (bicycle=yes or bicycle=no), and I am not talking about how we
>tag paths/footpaths/cycleways. That is a different discussion.
>
>How about the following cases: (bicycle=yes is true for all of these)
>
>Some that are not cycle routes:
>
>* Normal residential street. No road markings. No signs. No maps listing
>this street as a cycle route. I would say this is not a cycle route.
>* As above, but where I think this is a handy street to ride down. I would
>say this is not a cycle route.
>* As above, but where some other people also think this is a handy street
>to ride down (and in fact I saw some just the other day). Again, not a
>cycle route in the OSM sense.
>* As above, but there is a council map that says this street is a cycle
>route. (The map also lists other streets as cycle routes, and other streets
>do have signs, but this street does not.) I have found this to be fairly
>common. I would say this is not a cycle route.
>
>Tricky ones:
>
>* A council map says this is a cycle route, but there are no markings. In
>fact the council does not use road signs or paint to mark any of its "cycle
>route". This is tricky, but I would not mark this in OSM, as the
>(copyright) map cannot be verified on the ground.
>* A section of street that does not have any markings connects other
>streets that do have markings (e.g. bike symbols painted on the road).
>Cyclists commonly use this street to connect. Maps show this street as a
>cycle route. This also is tricky.
>* A shared use path that does not connect to any other known cycle routes.
>I would probably not mark this as a cycle route, but it depends on where it
>is.
>* A section of road has a cycle lane (where the law requires cyclists to
>ride in it), but the section of road does not connect to any other known
>cycle routes. Again tricky, and it probably depends on where it is.
>
>Easier ones:
>
>* In states where riding on footpaths is normally not allowed, a shared use
>path that connects known (marked) cycle routes. Yes this is a cycle route.
>* A number of other maps show this as a cycle route. It has bikes painted
>on the road. Signs every 500m saying "Cycle Route". Signs at every
>intersection with a picture of a bike, and showing the destination. Yes
>this is a cycle route.
>
>I can think of more tricky edge cases, but in general I am more concerned
>with whether some physical presence on the ground is required, as opposed
>to "I thought this might be a nice street to ride my bike down."
>
> - Ben Kelley.
>
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