[OSM-talk] Cycle lanes & cycle tracks - my findings and a proposal

[Rob Nickerson]

As part of improving the wiki pages on UK tagging guidelines, I wanted to
add details about cycle lanes and cycle tracks. As seen in this mailing
list, I quickly got confused. I want to take this opportunity to share my
findings.


1. "cycleway" key.
I found the current cycleway key to be confusing. It attempts to allow the
mapper to tag cycle lanes (within the roadway/carriageway) and cycle tracks
(alongside, but not within the roadway). It is complicated by the fact that
there could be a LANE on either, or both sides of the road. Furthermore
there could be a cycle TRACK on either side of the road and these may be
one-way or two-way.

We use "opposite" to indicate that cycles can travel against the flow of
traffic on a one-way street, but on a two-way street you would use
cycleway:right=lane to signify that there is a cycle lane in the opposite
direction to how the road is drawn in OSM.


2. Left, Right, Forward, Backward.
I expect many people find these hard to understand. What if the cyclelane
is not on the far left/right but is between traffic lanes (e.g. for
straight on when you have a left turn lane for vehicles).


3. My thoughts
My current thinking (based on looking at example cycleways in the UK and
Netherlands), is that we should consider splitting out the 2 cases
(English: "lanes" and "tracks"; Dutch "Fietsstrook" and "Fietspad"). By
doing this we make have tags with clear purpose. For example:

3a - Cycle lanes (within the roadway/carriageway) / "Fietsstrook".
In this case the direction matters. Exact lane position is not so critical
but can be tagged using the "lanes" tagging scheme if desired.

* For beginners:

cyclelane = forward
cyclelane = backward
cyclelane = both

* For more detail (e.g.)

cyclelane:forward = shared (to include the current sharrow value)
cyclelane:forward = share_busway
cyclelane:forward = advisory  (term used in the UK; "fietssuggestiestrook"
in Dutch)
cyclelane:forward = mandatory (a UK term meaning that other vehicles are
prohibited from using the lane)
cyclelane:forward = yes


3b - Cycle tracks (alongside and separate from the roadway) / "Fietspad".
In this case it is the side of the road on which the track is that matters
most. Direction can be added for countries that have one-way cycle tracks.

* For beginners:

cycletrack = left
cycletrack = right
cycletrack = both

* For more detail (e.g.)
Mainly for the Netherlands which can have one-way cycletracks (can also be
foot=no if a pavement also exists, so this may need to be incorporated but
is not essential)

cycletrack:left = forward
cycletrack:left = backward
cycletrack:left = two-way

note how this would be easy for renderers to draw and add direction arrows.


4. Discussion.

I appreciate that this is a radical change from the current system. However
as adoption of the current system is still _relatively_ low (in terms of
renderers and routing software), IF we are to address this, then now is the
best time.

Regards,
RobJN

p.s. Personally I feel that cycle TRACKS would be much easier to map if
drawn as a separate highway=cycleway (despite any challenges the renderers
and routers currently have with this) - it just makes things a lot easier!!
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