[OSM-talk] Mapping dangerous bicycle locations?

[Paul Johnson]

I've brought this up before, but have since gone with the general consensus
that this is just too subjective, even if we were to come up with some kind
of rubric to standardize things.  A big and highly inconsistent issue
between regions is regional attitude.  I don't care for on-street riding,
even in a reasonably extensive network of bike lanes in Portland largely
because motorists have a tendency of ignoring lane access completely, often
driving against traffic or in reserved lanes to save time with pretty
flagrant disregard for safety.  Or they just like to intentionally aim for
cyclists and pedestrians for laughs.  And the cycleways tend to be a
congested and unpredictable clog of pedestrians, bicycles, and dogs either
off leash or walking on the other side of the roadway from the person
holding a 20-foot-long leash, clotheslining everything in their reach.
It's an NP-complete perfect storm of pitfalls.  Meanwhile, less experienced
cyclists would feel safer or safe in any of those situations.

Meanwhile, there's very few streets in Tulsa, Dallas or Oklahoma City I
don't feel too out of place on and cycleways generally have pedestrian
facilities except in suburbs (mostly because the suburbs don't have the
traffic to warrant them yet and passing is a nonissue save for the
occasional rare blind curve, junction or hillcrest).  Roads like Bixby's
Memorial Drive (US 64) or Oklahoma City's Portland Avenue (OK 74), with
their lack of shoulders, relatively high traffic volumes, and total lack of
even a "share the road" sign might not pose substantial additional risk
over a cycleway, mostly because the drivers are mellow.  However, the
average American would look at that and say, "Nope!"


On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Stefan Keller <sfkeller at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> What about crowdsourcing dangerous bicycle locations using key/tag hazard?
> See http://wiki.osm.org/wiki/DE:Key:hazard
> And see also https://twitter.com/sfkeller/status/574213951644368896
>
> Yours, S.
>
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