[OSM-talk] Cycle lanes

[Ben Laenen]

On Friday 28 March 2008, Andy Allan wrote:
> I'd tag every one of those as highway=cycleway on a separate way, if
> I had the time and the patience. If I was busy, I would see
> cycleway=track as being a stop-gap, and someone else could model them
> as separate ways when they had the time (in the same way that there's
> nothing wrong with a parking node when you can't/don't want to draw
> the area in full).
>
> If, however, someone came along and removed my separate ways and
> added cycleway=track to the road I would be very cross!

I've started thinking along those lines as well now. Separate highways 
for cycleways could provide some more detail. But keep this "lower 
resolution" method for quick tagging, so it doesn't need gps tracks for 
each cycleway before one is able to say in OSM that the road has a 
cycleway.

However, if cycle tracks are separate ways, then cycle lanes like 
http://www.info.groenbrussel.be/images/random/fietspad.jpg should be as 
well IMHO (since the painted cycleways can just as well have all the 
extra tags as cycle tracks, they could just as well cross the street, 
be oneway or not, etc).

The talk about legislation in the UK in one of the earlier responses to 
one of my mails makes me wonder though if their cycle lanes are 
somewhat the same as our "fietssuggestiestroken" (bicycle suggestion 
strips) like http://www.maldegem.be/infokrant_april07/0205.jpg
The rules on it are quite simple: there are no rules for it :-). The 
strip is just part of the road, only in a different colour, but that 
has no meaning in traffic law whatsoever. Cars are allowed to drive on 
them whereas the one in the picture above cars can only cross them, and 
it doesn't give cyclists right of way over other traffic, whereas the 
first kind does.

Doesn't take away the fact that renderers have to be able to handle it 
though before it gives nice results, and that may be a lot of work as 
well for all I can see.

I also wonder about the exact interaction with sidewalks. Cycle tracks 
are often embedded into the sidewalk like this for example 
http://www.bttb.be/beelden/astridplein.JPG which is basically two 
footways on each side of the cycleway. How would one put such a 
situation in OSM?

Greetings
Ben