Eurovelo routes - proposed, planned or actual?

General talk
1

Recently cycling in both the Czech Republic and in Slovenia. and trying to follow EV7 and EV9 routes, it seemed that many long stretches were marked on OSM as actual routes whereas they are only at present planned. I was taken along some very bad gravel tracks , impossible to ride with a loaded touring bike. Also along a main road for 15 km with no cycle path. In one case a ferry was marked across the river Vltava, south of Prague (on EV7) but no ferry exists , or had ever existed (if I understood the locals correctly).
What is the purpose of adding cycle route tags to these proposed routes? It really messes up routing apps which try to use them, and leads to a lot of wasted time finding alternative routes.

2

I’d suggest that you comment on the changeset that added the “not yet” ways to the cycle routes and ask them what their source was. If you’d like more information about how to locate the exact changes that cause the problems, link to the problem area and someone will probably be able to figure it out.

3

From what I gathered there are (self-assigned) categories to different stages of Eurovelo routes (in order of completeness):

Certified
Developed with signs
Developed
Under Development
Planning stage

The first two categories should be the most verifiable. The others not so much. If you browse throught the routes on the Eurovelo website most of the stages seem to be in the latter categories. And while they seem to be mostly usable, they can vary greatly in surface/smoothness/availability.

I suppose they are very hard to maintain and verify. Especially when some parts are finished and others aren’t even existing.

4

Thank you, I have sent a message to the person who appears to have added the Eurovelo tag to the non-existent ferry. It was done 6 years ago, so maybe there was a ferry then.
I will see how that progresses, and then look at other problems I found.

5

Now that I have returned home and have access to a proper browser, I see that the section I found with the missing ferry is marked as ‘developed’. But it goes several km east of the route that is tagged on OSM, it is always east of the river Vltava and doesn’t cross it. I can only guess that several years ago the plan was to take the route further west. It’s quite a big change, at least 50km of routing.