[OSM-talk] Cycleways and Access tags: Left, Right, Forward, Backward?

[rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com]

Hi All,

The following I have posted to  
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Key:cycleway and am posting here to  
help promote discussion.
Cheers,
RobJN


Left, Right, Forward, Backward?

Correct me if I am wrong but the choice of left/right depends on the  
direction in which the way is drawn (after all ways can be considered as  
arrows). On the Access tag key page they suggest the use of "forward"  
and "backward" for the same purpose. Neither are that easy for mappers to  
use as it requires the people to realise that ways are essentially arrows,  
and then the mapper has to determine which way the arrow is pointing  
(something that I currently struggled to do in Potlatch2 - I hadn't  
realised that the arrow next to the bin indicates the direction)!

My concern with right / left is that some may think "ok we drive on the  
right side of the road so it must be cycleway:right" (similarly left for  
countries such as the UK that drive on the left side of the road). A quick  
look on TagInfo reveals:

cycleway:right=* - 9190 occurrences
cycleway:left=* - 4329 occurrences

A way has a 50/50% chance of being drawn in either direction so (unless  
people are reversing ways as they prefer right to left) then you would  
expect the split to be closer.
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