So more people are aware of it.
I like the idea of a subtag how westnordost proposed it. It helps a lot adding this fine detail on all currently already tagged bike lanes without generating a real mess. 
I support cycleway:lane=dashed / continuous
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no need to review/retag every single cycleway=lane
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people not caring about distinction will not be forced to care about it (at least in Poland there is no real difference between these two types and single cycleway lane may have segment of both types what would make painful to tag this).
“cycleway:lane=dashed” is meaningless. It tells the user exactly one thing: that there’s a dashed line between the bicycle lane and the nearest vehicle lane. It says absolutely nothing about the meaning of that line. Locally, it means the bicycle lane is ending, but judging from the other posts, in at least parts of Europe, it apparently means the bicycle lane is semi-shared with motorized traffic.
As a motorized-vehicle equivalent, it would be like tagging a road as “centerline=white_dashes”. Here in the US, it means you’re on a one-way multi-lane road and lane changes are permitted. In other places it means you’re on a two-way multi-lane road (or you’re at an airport and you should probably drive off the runway before an airplane arrives).
If you want to tag road markings for any purpose other than providing rendering hints, figure out the meaning of those markings and pick a tag that reflects that meaning.
And that is what a dashed line says its is “shared”, if you want to call it like that, with a different vehicle, mostly cars. The motorized vehicle equivalent has no value here, because its called cycleway.
In the UK, a dashed line is advisory, whereas a solid line is mandatory. I believe a solid line, in this context, is only mandatory for motor vehicles.
Advisory means that there is no offence committed when motor vehicles encroach on the cycle lane.
Unfortunately, it also means cars can park on the cycle lane, so many advisory cycle lanes are useless for cyclists.
In Belgium, shared cycleways are marked with a continuous red paint, see e.g. https://www.mapillary.com/map/im/U4eN0FazGTZTtycovXdfKQ
What do you mean with shared? cycleway=shared_lane?
First of all, i support the tagging scheme proposed by @westnordost (cycleway:lane=dashed / continuous). The reasons given look “solid” to me 
A dashed lane has the meaning you want to give it. If its an ending cycleway, then it still means that cars can cross the dashed line. However, these are probably only few meters and would definitly be “micro mapping”.
Though, if the example posted by escada shows a cycle lane with a soft demarcation, then if we tag by appearance, as I proposed, we would need give this red stripe another tagging, as it is clearly not dashed but its *meaning *should still be a soft demarcation. cycleway:lane=red or something. This somewhat seems wrong to me, hmm 
SimonPoole brought the by-appearance tagging up in a previous topic, I wonder what would be his 5 cent on the information on the Belgian situation.
The suggestion was more along the lines of “here’s a Gordian Knot approach to the problem if you can’t agree on something sensible”.
The problem is, as so often with bicycle related tagging, that we have parties wanting to make an advocacy statement, in this case that non-exclusive use cycle lanes are bad, in OSM. It isn’t that I don’t agree, just that OSM is the wrong place to voice that opinion. A further problem is that one of the obvious two adjectives that could be used to describe the properties of Euro-style bicycle lanes: exclusive and shared, shared is already in use for a slightly different concept (shared lanes as in the US).
Simon
I oppose cycleway:lane=dashed/continuous because a dashed cycle lane does not mean the same thing everywhere.
In Norway a dashed line is the normal marking for cycle lanes. Only bikes are allowed to drive in the cycle lane. Other vehicles, such as cars or mopeds, are not allowed there. A solid cycle lane line simply means that cyclists are not allowed to change lanes.
Tractor, could it be that you misunderstood something? The reasoning behind cycleway:lane=dashed/continuous in the thread starter is exactly the reason you state: that in practice and in legislation, the meaning of a dashed line can differ from country to country. The dashed value does not make any statement about the meaning of it, it only states that visually, there is a dashed line.
Okaay, I think I gradually get why the community hasn’t been able to agree on a tag yet …
…and that is because it is viewed from different angles here.
My angle is the angle of the surveyor, the angle of verifiability: The surveyor sees a dashed line - ok - and wants to input this information into the OSM database. It would be quite a lot to ask from each and every surveyor that he knows about the exact legislation and input this accordingly. In other words, if you require (this) expert knowledge from the surveyor, you can count on that this will only ever very sporadically (or wrongly) be mapped and thus, the information is pretty worthless for any data user.
The other angle (yours, I guess?) is that of a data user. In the end, he is just interested in the definite information: is the cycleway exclusive, is it compulsory for use, is it of a certain standard etc… Sure, it would be nice to have this information “pre-packaged” like this, but in the end, it is derived information. Derived from where? From the visual appearance, as surveyed by surveyors, plus country specific legislation.
It comes down to one fundamental question: Whose job is it to derive the on the ground information to usable information - The surveyor’s, or the data user’s?
As the author of a surveyor assisting application, I may be biased, but I value easy contribution, verifiability and thus ultimately (better) maintainability of the map over easy direct applicability of the data. It is a similar thing with implicit speed limits like i.e. maxspeed:type=NO:urban, really. Data users can not directly make use of that data, they need country-specific metadata that translates that to a concrete speed limit. This “problem” could be solved with **one **meta data library, that any data user (= an application/service) can use.
Surveyors do not have that luxury, and even if they have a surveyor assisting application that could in theory have the meta data to translate the observation to the applicable data, it would mean that surveying a feature can not start before when this meta data is defined in detail for any given country.
Are we on the same page now?
Also, are you sure about the rules as you mentioned them? Did not read anything relevant about it here.
(Slighty off topic now but here is an instance where requiring surveyors to know the legislation really backfired. Read it if you are interested: maxspeed=: in US)
Uh okay, I had the impression that we were on the verge of coming to a consensus before you mentioned the dashed-tagging though. (cycleway:lane=soft/hard)
Sure, but with a subtag, it’d still be distinguishable. cycleway=shared_lane for sharrows and cycleway=lane + cycleway:lane=shared for dashed cycle lanes.
Yes, it is a cycleway=shared_lane. It does not create a real, separated lane, and cars typically drive with the right wheels in this coloured strip.
That’s why I do not like any tagging that is just mentions what it painted. The mapper should know the local traffic law and map the result of that.
That would seem to be a rather high hurdle for contributing to OSM.
I really hope there was a missing smiley!
Nope.
Netherlands.
The same and by law you must drive/ride right, color red asphalt does not mean anything.
You can even park on that red with dashed line.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/NL:Key:cycleway
But then: cycleway:lane
Important is the bicycle icon after each junction.
You may drive over the dashed line, but when you may not park or unnecessary stand still (also for bicycle).
Continuous line, you can not cross it.
Where do we use a continuous line.
at overtake, overtaking line
and at turn:lanes see example
lanes=4
turn:lanes=none|through|through|slight_right
transit:lanes=continue|continue|continue|leave
through effect.
Going over a line is a turn lane effect. going straight is through.
turn:lanes=through
We already use it, no need for a change.
Edit:
But not yet with cycleway=lane is suppose.
or
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/wxi
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/429041570#map=19/50.79163/6.09863
Can I ask you why you think it is a good thing that people map things they do not understand ?