As a comparatively new mapper the dashed/continuous solution seems better to me.
In my town the usage of tags like bicycle=no/yes/designated is often wrong, as far as I can see. So, I prefer a solution that is easy to validate. Of course, it might happen that micomapping becomes a problem. Here you need a clear statement that this should not be (in the wiki for example) and an informed mapper. The informed mapper you also need for a mapping by meaning.
Specials like colors and signs could be done by further (sub-)tags. In this case it would be the task of the renderer/router to know the local legislation and to implement it correctly.
Concerning the Belgian cycle paths: As it seems to be a more or less special situation, it might be tagged as continuous line. Okay, this might be not 100 % consistent to my previous “map what you see” statement. Feel free to criticize me
If there’s a dashed line or a solid line in the middle of the road, we don’t map the road marking. We map what it represents - i.e. with the overtaking=no tag. This means that the data can be parsed worldwide despite slightly variant markings - in the UK, for example, a double white line means “no overtaking”, but in some other countries it’s yellow, or a single line, or both.
We should do the same in this instance. Rather than tagging “dashed line”, tag what it means, in a format that’s consistent the world over. The lingua franca of OSM tagging is British English, so this might be something like cycleway:lane=advisory (or ‘mandatory’). “soft_lane” is awfully Denglisch.
But in fact we don’t need to do that. We already have tags that can be used for this purpose.
If cars are prohibited in the cycle lane: cycleway:motor_vehicle=no
If cars are allowed in the cycle lane: cycleway:motor_vehicle=yes
And following the well-adopted bicycle=use_sidepath tag (which is also Denglisch, but that ship has sailed):
If bikes must use the cycle lane and aren’t allowed in the main carriageway: bicycle=use_cycleway
I’d be happy to add support for any of these to cycle.travel’s routing weightings.
Okay, I am back.** I am now a specialist on cycleway legislation. Ask me anything :P**
I also dipped into how the cycleways are used in practice a bit, for a few countries. I have a good overall picture now, and my proposal is:
cycleway:lane = exclusive / shared / pictograms
First things first, let me share my knowledge with you: Here is my research on legislations of cycleways in different countries. It is mostly based on this wikipedia article, however re-checked in the actual law for most countries as this article gets a few things wrong and does not contain how these actually look like.
I cannot claim 100% correctness, as the main goal for this research was to find the similarities between the countries and determine categories this way.
Now, as a result, I have to say, that bikeways on the road can actually be sorted not into **three **categories, but four. I will cite from the linked pdf:
Dang! So this is going to be even more complicated? No, don’t worry, I’ll explain now:
No country safe for Belgium/Netherlands has both softly exclusive cycleways (B1) and suggestive cycleways (B2), so they can be merged into simply B - anything dashed. This means that legislations on what dashed means differ slightly between the different countries:
in some countries, stopping with a car (sometimes even parking) is allowed, in others not
in some countries, the legislation talks about that cars may not “hinder” cyclists, in others, the legislation talks about that cars may only not “endanger” cyclists
in some countries, usage is obligatory for cyclists, in others not
But the important thing they have got all in common is this one thing: They are used whenever there is not enough space on the road for both dedicated cycleways (continuous lane or track) and full lanes for cars. And this is what matters most, because it means, that essentially, cyclists and cars more or less have to share the road-space. Cars need to cross into the cycle lane to evade oncoming traffic and cyclists may need to veer out of the cycle lane because of stopping cars on the lane or to keep their distance to i.e. the dreaded doors of parking cars.
So, abstracting away from the actual, sometimes unclear and changing legislation of which most road-users are ignorant anyway leaves us again with just three categories:
A: exclusive: cyclists have an own lane for themselves
B: shared: cyclists and cars share the space with one another
C: pictograms: it’s just a normal road with bicycle pictograms painted on it
But what about Belgium and Netherlands?
As you can see in the linked PDF, Belgium is somewhat of an exception: There all cycle lanes are dashed, and the suggestive cycle lanes when there is not enough space on the road are not dashed. Netherlands seems to be also a bit of an outlier because there are both “proper” dashed cycleways and suggestive cycleways.
So, I asked around in the community what is the current mapping practice on this. After all, we are not on a greenfield here.
Turns out, that both in Belgium and Netherlands consistently, the consensus has always been to map these “suggestive cycleways” as cycleway=shared_lane, even though that tagging is documented as “bicycle pictograms on the road, only really used in America” on the main wiki page in English. However, it is also documented in the Dutch OSM wiki to use cycleway=shared_lane for these Fietssuggestiestroken.
This explains why some German mappers express the opinion why Schutzstreifen should be mapped as shared_lane, which has a similar legal standing as the Dutch Fietssuggestiestroken and apparently also map this way.
Because the mentioned tag is now used for two different things, its definition is unfortunately not precise anymore - at least for those countries which both have suggestive cycleways and simple bicycle pictograms on the road (i.e. Czech Republic, France, increasingly other countries, such as Germany).
So, the only proper extension compatible with the current mapping practice I see is therefore this:
Using these subtags, as normal with subtags, is of course optional and for some countries, it would probably make no sense to use these. I.e. for any country where not both pictograms and suggestive lanes exist and at the same time the shared_lane value used on these then (USA, Canada, Belgium, probably Switzerland, that is).
Also, using these subtags, Dutch users can make a distinction, if they want to do that, between fietsstroken met onderbroken streep and Fietssuggestiestroken (using the same subtag but a different cycleway=* tag.
The reason why I changed my opinion on not using the direct appearances continuous, dashed and pictograms but abstracted one level away from that is mainly because of Belgium. I do not have a strong opinion on it though, I would be about just as fine with my original proposal though. Also, for Belgium, as mentioned, the subtag is pretty unnecessary anyway.
I may create a vote to decide on it later when all has been said what is to say about that and the discussion did not favour one option clearly.
Unfortunately this isn’t consistently the case in the UK.
To create a mandatory (solid line) cycle lane in which cars are banned, the highway authority (usually a county or unitary council) has to issue a Traffic Regulation Order, as is always the case when restrictions are being placed on a Public Right of Way to which traffic has an existing legal right. This is expensive and time-consuming.
To create an advisory (dashed line) cycle lane, the highway authority just needs to send a man out with a pot of paint.
Consequently many authorities create advisory lanes simply to save money and time. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t enough space on the road - there usually is. It just means the council wants to save money.
Richard:Well, I wrote they are usually narrower. Also, saving money is not the only effect that placing an advisory cycle lane instead of a mandatory cycle lane has in the UK, as you surely know (parking cars).
So, based on my earlier post and the research I have done on what types of cycle infrastructure exist in the world I will go ahead an mention the new subtag in the wiki at the appropriate locations:
cycleway:lane = exclusive / shared / pictograms
Also, as a follow-up, I created icons for how they will be displayed in StreetComplete
(Regarding making a distinction between cycle lanes and non-exclusive cycle lanes in Belgium, I am currently asking if it makes sense in the Belgium forum)
If someone is capable of making a good ‘description’ for https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Cyclestreet , so that it could then (afterwards) be possible to make a proposal for it ? I am a ‘noob’ in making such ‘description’ …
The semantic meanings of “exclusive” and “shared” are fairly self-explanatory, but I can’t figure out “pictograms”. To me, that value sounds like we’re back to describing the literal physical representation rather than the semantic meaning. When combined with the other two values which describe semantics, it seems like an odd mix. What would your definition be for “pictograms”, both for contributors and data consumers?
I explained this in this post. The Dutch and the Belgians in particular (but some people elsewhere as well) use cycleway:shared_lane for their “suggestion cycle lane”, even though elsewhere it is used to describe something like sharrows (bicycle pictograms on the road with no legal consequence). To accomodate for the current situation, it is possible with the subtag to specify that it is one or the other.
So, in a nutshell: cycleway:lane=pictograms would mean that it is a shared cycle lane of the type that there are just bicycle pictograms painted on the street without any dashed line or anything.
Based on your description, it sounds like “cycleway:lane=pictograms” is effectively meaning “cycleway:lane=not_a_cycle_lane”. If that’s the case, then a value should be used that better describes this semantic rather than the physical markings. Maybe something like “cycleway:lane=optional” or “cycleway:lane=suggested”?
I believe pictograms is the best option. Believe me, I put a lot of time into thinking into this. Note that sharrows are sometimes also called “pictogram lanes” (and even more often “shared lanes”), even though as you note, they are not really lanes.
As for your suggestions: suggested - Conflicts with the Dutch/Belgic “suggestion cycle lanes” (Fietssuggestiestrook) which has been tagged as cycleway=shared_lane in the past and should additionally be tagged with cycleway:lane=shared to distinguish from “sharrows” which would be tagged with pictograms then. optional - Already dashed cycle lanes (aka protective cycle lanes, recommended cycle lanes, advisory cycle lanes) are in most or even all countries where they exist optional for cyclists.
Things are getting confusing now. So cycleway:lane=shared means it’s a shared lane, and cycleway:lane=pictograms also means it’s a shared lane? Sharrow is a shared cycle lane, so why wouldn’t those use cycleway:lane=shared too? For that matter, why do we need to use an additional tag to distinguish between exclusive and shared cycle lanes, when we already have cycleway=lane and cycleway=shared_lane to do this?
A Google search for “pictogram lane” yields only a few pages of results, none of which are related to any type of cycling lane, so I’d argue that this term is not used at all.
As for a distinction between the Dutch/Belgian lanes and sharrows, there doesn’t seem to be any difference according to our current documentation:
At this time, I can’t see any reason why a new and confusing value needs to be used to differentiate between two usages (Fietssuggestiestrook vs. sharrow) which aren’t even different. Is it still the road markings that you’re primarily focused on mapping? I thought it had been sufficiently explained that this isn’t useful and that the semantic meaning is what’s most important.
Hmm, did you really read my earlier post? I explained everything there.
I wrote that today. I did not mention how to distinguish the two via subtags cycleway:lane=shared/pictograms yet because perhaps something else comes out of the discussion here.
cycleway=lane + cycleway:lane=exclusive
Cycle lanes strictly reserved exclusively for cyclists, segregated from the rest of the road usually through a continuous line.
cycleway=lane + cycleway:lane=shared
Cycle lanes which are not strictly exclusive, i.e. cars may pass over and halt on it if necessary, usually with dashed line markings. Often narrower than cycle lanes with continuous lines. Referred to by many different names, amongst these are dashed cycle lanes, protective lanes, multi-purpose-lane, recommended and reserved cycle lane, advisory or shared cycle lanes
cycleway=shared_lane
Any kind of road marking that indicates that cyclists and motorists ought to share a lane.
cycleway=shared_lane + cycleway:lane=pictograms
A shared-lane marking, also known as sharrows, shared lane, pictogram corridor or lane, consisting of only bicycle pictograms on the street which have no legal implications
cycleway=shared_lane + cycleway:lane=shared
Suggestive/advisory lanes in particular, very similar to dashed cycle lanes only that they have no legal implications and thus are another way to indicate that cyclists and motorists share the road. Only really used in Belgium and Netherlands because they have both dashed cycle lanes and this type. In Belgium, there are actually also those pictogram lanes.
Why do you assume that they are not different? I wrote in the wiki that they serve the same purpose, but that does not mean that they have the same meaning. Edit 29/03 11:30: In reality, a dashed cycle lane is very similar to a suggestion cycle lane. I.e. looking at the law, in some countries the dashed cycle lane has more or less the same legal standing as the Fietssuggestiestrook in Netherlands, and in practice, anyway. As the latter is currently tagged as cycleway=shared_lane, I think it is necessary to make the distinction to a simple pictogram corridor/sharrows.
You can search for Piktogramový koridor, this is the Czech name for that and translates to pictogram corridor.
This particular discussion has been dragging on for almost half a year now. I am tired of it. At this rate the discussion will *never *end.
I could create a vote, on doodle or something, but I haven’t heard any real candidates because people that object (here) about a suggestion seem to be not very forthcoming about providing an alternative suggestion.
So, alester, do you have a concrete suggestion that you find better than the one currently proposed that takes into account how things are currently tagged and the situations in the different countries?
So far, candidates¹ are:
continuous / dashed / pictograms - tag what you see. In Belgium, all cycle lanes are dashed
exclusive / shared / pictograms - tag the implicit meaning of what you see. shared might be confusing when used together with cycleway=shared_lane
hard / soft / pictograms - tag the implicit meaning of what you see. Meaning of tags by some regarded as unclear / not proper English
By the way, the opinion in the Belgium forum is that it wouldn’t make sense to employ this subtag in Belgium anyway because there is usually no distinction between exclusive and shared cycle lanes. So the dashed-candidate would be fine as well. Personally, I would be fine with any of them.
¹ I left out Richard’s suggestion, because as he assessed himself, the tagging would then reflect the legislative situation of the obligation for cyclists to use it which is something different as proposed here and would be expressed by other tags already.
Alright, I am going to suggest something myself and will document it in the wiki if I hear no objections and finally be done with it. Based on the feedback from alester, shared may be confusing when used in context of cycleway=shared_lane (Fietsstrook mostly), so then:
exclusive / advisory / pictogram
You can find many pictures which show exactly this kind of cycle lane when searching for advisory cycle lane, so this is a common name for it. Additionally, it does not collide with any current tagging names or concepts in the real world. (In Britain, “Advisory cycle lanes” are officially exactly that.)
There are also many pictures for shared lanes, but I chose to keep the shared keyword out of the picture because the term is not very specific and would lead to confusion: anything but an exclusive cycle lane is shared and “shared_lane” is already the value of the parent tag.
