[Talk-GB] LCN - Local Cycle Network

[Richard Fairhurst]

Hello all,

We seem to be ending up with wildly conflicting use of 'lcn=yes', 
'lcn_ref=*', and similar tags across Britain.

In London, these tags are used as you would expect - to map the 
signposted London Cycle Network. It's pretty much in keeping with ncn= 
and rcn= tagging.

In Worcester, there's an official city network with some numbered 
routes, others with symbols (e.g. purple diamond). These are not fully 
mapped yet, but where they are, they're tagged with lcn tags.

In Cambridge, the official city network isn't numbered, but it is 
coherently and clearly signed. These routes are also tagged using lcn 
tags as you'd expect. Nottingham and Wisbech seem to be the same.

So far so good. But there also appear to be lots of rather more 
confusing uses of the tag.

In some places, we have large-scale leisure routes tagged as lcn. The 
Chiltern Cycleway and Round Berkshire Cycleway are two examples that 
spring to mind. In others, we have networks of local leisure routes 
tagged as lcn (e.g. Warwickshire - contrast with Wales where rcn= is 
used for the Wales Cycle Breaks routes). In yet others, we have small 
isolated rural routes or links tagged as lcn.

On occasion people tag a selection of roads or paths as LCN just to get 
them to render as bike-friendly on OCM, when in fact there's nothing 
particularly networky or even route-y about them.

There are also a couple of towns where local cyclists have devised their 
own networks and tagged them as 'lcn', even though there's little or no 
on-the-ground evidence. In some cases the cyclists are in active 
discussions with the transport authority to get this network adopted, 
but in others it may be more wistful.

Sites like CycleStreets, BikeHike, and OpenCycleMap, apps like 
CycleStreets and Bike Hub, and Garmin maps mean that OSM is probably now 
the most-used cycle map of Britain. We have a responsibility to make it 
accurate, consistent, and readily understood.

I would like to propose that:

- Local cycle networks with objective, on-the-ground evidence (usually 
signposts) are tagged as lcn=yes (and lcn_ref=..., lcn_name=..., or the 
relations equivalent) as at present.

- Cycle networks that are not significantly verifiable on the ground, 
but are proposed for official adoption and are under active discussion 
with the transport authority, are tagged as lcn=proposed.

- Large-scale (non-NCN) leisure routes and county-wide networks are 
moved to rcn=, to accord with the similar routes already tagged as such 
(e.g. National Byway and light-blue-number routes).

- Non-network routes are not tagged as lcn=, but may of course be tagged 
as route=bicycle (perhaps as a relation).

Thoughts?

cheers
Richard