[Talk-us] Smooth shoulder intended for cycling

Nathan Edgars II neroute2 at gmail.com
Wed Apr 18 02:15:49 BST 2012


I'm wondering what the best way would be to tag a good-quality shoulder 
that acts essentially as an undesignated bike lane, in that you can use 
it but it is not required. Current Florida DOT policy is to use these on 
rural roads, with marked bike lanes only when there is a lane to the 
right. For example here: 
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=30.605358,-86.950672&spn=0.008255,0.016512&gl=us&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=30.605241,-86.950558&panoid=X4-X3CdhvVO_ptMWbvB8SA&cbp=12,330.83,,0,9.24
One can choose to ride either in the right lane or on the shoulder 
beyond the intersection.

One regional mapper uses cycleway=shoulder for this, but I see that as 
sub-optimal, since it's primarily a shoulder, not a cycleway. It would 
be like putting cycleway=sidewalk whenever there's a smooth paved sidewalk.

On the other hand, shoulder=yes or shoulder=paved says nothing about the 
quality of the shoulder. Should there be a minimum width for a shoulder 
(FDOT's standard is 4 feet)?



More information about the Talk-us mailing list