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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