Riding in pedestrian zones is allowed by default at least in France (at walking speed) and Italy, but prohibited by default at least in Germany, Belgium and Czechia
Pushing a bicycle (bicycle=dismount) is treated the same as pedestrian access and allowed wherever pedestrians are allowed in most countries
So, the most globally consistent implied default seems to be bicycle=dismount for both highway=footway and highway=pedestrian, unless explicitly tagged otherwise.
Whatâs the legal rule in your area when no signs are present?
I would assume that sidewalks are mapped as highway=footway + footway=sidewalk. I would not assume anything about bicycle riding on a highway=footway without subtags.
Iâm trying to determine the legal default when no bicycle tag or signs are present, since thatâs what data consumers end up relying on. Iâd really appreciate it if you could share what the legal default is in your area, or, if thatâs not well established, how users are expected to interpret this data when an explicit bicycle tag is missing.
I am not aware of a legal definition in Ontario that would correspond to a highway=footway, so itâs hard to say what the legal situation for bicycles on these ways isâŚ
I personally would assume âdismountâ, because I would guess local mappers would have used at least path for rideable paths. But I would not be too surprised if someone assumes riding on a bare footway too.
In practice children below the age of criminal responsibility (different in Scotland from England and Wales) are tolerated cycling on pavements, perhaps** because they are too young to âcommit the crimeâ. The other big caveat is if what looks to an OSMer as âa pavementâ (sidewalk, in OSM terms) is actually legally designated as a âshared spaceâ. These are supposed to be signed as per âSegregated pedal cycle and pedestrian routeâ on this page, but in practice signage can be woeful. These might getting tagged in OSM as a cycleway (if good quality) but in many cases highway=footway; bicycle=yes actually makes sense. However in both of those cases youâd hopefully have extra tags to go on.
For completeness, in the UK highway=footway is often used for âpaths designed for foot only accessâ that are not adjacent to roads. In England and Wales there is no âright to roamâ and there are instead some obscurely named access rights across private land. The least permissive of these, designation=public_footpath in OSM terms does not include a legal right to cycle there (though the landowner may permit it - that would be bicycle=permissive). Scotland has more sensible regulations and (subject to the caveats in that code) it is legal to cycle on a highway=footway there that is not âa pavementâ. Alas, footway=sidewalk tagging where relevant is far from complete - in Scotland I donât think evidence of absence is absence of evidence, so a data consumer advising on legal cycling routes in Scotland has a difficult job.
But to be clear, to answer your question, in England and Wales, and Scotland (and also I believe Northern Ireland) the implicit OSM tag for a highway=footway; footway=sidewalk is bicycle=no.
** Iâm not a lawyer; but this does seem to be the most common reasoning given.
PS a: UK law of course doesnât know about OSM tags, so all of the above applies to highway=path too.
PS b: In addition to the above there are lots of âbylawsâ that can add extra rules about specific areas. An area not far from me âStrensall Commonâ has about a dozen references here. The latest of these says that âwritten permission is requiredâ for âdriving or riding any vehicle with any wheel exceeding twenty inches in diameterâ. Good luck codifying that
Thank you for the detailed answer! Just to clarify: in the UK, the legal default for ways without specific bicycle signage tagged as highway=footway + footway=sidewalk is that riding a bicycle is prohibited, but pushing a bicycle is allowed, leaving aside the discussion as to whether this should be represented by bicycle=no or bicycle=dismount. Is that correct?
Long answer: I canât find anywhere in the Highway Code or elsewhere reputable that says that it is generally prohibited. That said, there will be specific signposted exceptions (bylaws may apply, perhaps).
However, when it comes to the England and Wales âpublic footpathsâ mentioned earlier, there are reputable sources who will claim that it is not legal** to push a bike on a public footpath because a bike isnât part of a pedestrianâs âusual accompanimentâ (a web search for that phrase will get a whole range of views on that).
I suspect that there are people reading this who may actually be aware of any case law here; I certainly am not.
** Still not a lawyer, but a potential civil offence of trespass rather than a criminal one, I suspect.
The whole point why bicycle=dismount came into existence is AFAIR because bicycle=no was ambiguous. Also see Bicycle - OpenStreetMap Wiki
So, that claim would depends on jurisdiction at least. I know of places where bicycle=no is meant to be harder then bicycle=dismount i.e. it means you are forbidden to even push the bicycle along (e.g. botanical garden example - youâll need to use your favorite translator supporting Croatian, though)
I would recommend exactly the opposite â if the cyclist must dismount, but it is permissible to push the bike along while walking, then tag that as bicycle=dismount always, as only that one is clear and unambiguous.
In Croatia, highway=footway without extra signage (and extra OSM tags) is legally bicycle=dismount. (In practice however, it is often disregarded and rarely fined, but please keep with legal rules if implementing your own router)
Trying to define legal bicycle access defaults in Canada is next to impossible because there are no national laws pertaining to this. Regulation of the use of âhighwaysâ (within both the OSMese meaning and real-life legal meaning) is at the provincial level, not national, and the regulation of the usage of bicycles is generally pushed down to the municipal government level. As such youâd have to define defaults for the hundreds of cities, towns, villages, counties and other rural municipalities across the country.
(I suspect itâs very much the same in the United States.)
I think you missed the thrust of what Jarek was trying to convey to you. He wasnât just saying âdonât assume anything about the permissibility of riding a bicycle on a highway=footway with no further tagsâ: he was also trying to say âdonât assume a highway=footway and highway=footway, footway=sidewalk have the same rulesâ.
Thatâs what he meant by his other comment:
Likewise for Alberta, and I think safe to assume for Canada at large: we donât have âfootwaysâ within the European understanding of such a thing.
However, we do have sidewalks, which is why the distinction is important.
âsidewalkâ means that part of a highway especially adapted to the use of or ordinarily used by pedestrians, and includes that part of a highway between
(i) the curb line, or
(ii) where there is no curb line, the edge of the roadway,
and the adjacent property line, whether or not it is paved or improved;
As such where Iâve been mapping sidewalks I make sure to include the footway=sidewalk tag.
There are no further rules in the Traffic Safety Act about the use of bicycles or any other implement on a sidewalk. These restrictions are legislated at the municipal level.
42. (1) Except as otherwise provided in this Section, a person shall not:
(a) drive, lead or allow a hoofed animal to walk;
(b) drive, draw or push any motor vehicle;
(c) ride a bicycle;
(d) ride a horse; or
(e) draw, push, propel or ride a wheeled vehicle of any description other than
a bicycle
on or along a sidewalk, or boulevard.
(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of Subsection (1), a person may draw, push or
propel:
(a) a two wheeled cart or other personal grocery carrier; or
(b) a baby carriage, a wheeled device for carrying a child or an invalid; or
(c) a childâs tricycle; or
(d) a childâs bicycle operated by an individual under the age of Fourteen (14)
years;
on or along a sidewalk in such a way as to not interfere with the other
pedestrians using the sidewalk.
So 42(1)(c) says you cannot ride a bicycle on a sidewalk in general but, 42(2) makes exemptions for âa childâs tricycleâ (clause c) and âa childâs bicycle operated by an individual under the age of 14â (clause d).
There is also a specific exemption under section 41 subsection 2 for newspaper deliverers (what few of those may remainâŚ):
(2) Notwithstanding Subsection (1) of Section 42, a carrier of a newspaper may ride a bicycle on a sidewalk, or boulevard:
(a) if he is delivering copies of the newspaper at the time; and
(b) if the bicycle does not interfere with other persons proceeding by foot on the said sidewalk, footpath, or boulevard.
Now, there are also pathways, which are defined in the bylaw as:
âpathwayâ means a multi-purpose thoroughfare controlled by The City and set aside for use by pedestrians, cyclists and persons using wheeled conveyances, which is improved by asphalt, concrete or brick, whether or not it is located in a park, and includes any bridge or structure with which it is contiguous;
Unless the Director, Calgary Parks designates otherwise:
(a) a person must not ride or operate a vehicle or device, other than a bicycle or
wheeled conveyance, on a pathway; and
(b) a person must not ride or operate a bicycle or wheeled conveyance in a park
other than on a park roadway, pathway or trail.
So, a âpathwayâ I would tend to tag as highway=cycleway unless cycling was specifically prohibited on it. I would tend to tag it with foot=designated and bicycle=designated regardless of whether I tagged it with highway=cycleway or highway=footway to begin with. There are a few places in the city where pathways diverge into specially designated, dedicated pedestrian and cycling pathways; these I would tag with cycleway and footway as appropriate.
OT to bike access, sorry, but how does the postman deliver the mail? Our posties use either motorbikes or electric âtrikesâ, while the occasional bicycle is still in use!, riding along the footpath to stick mail into individual letter boxes.
In addition, various places e.g. shopping centres (malls) will often have âNo bicycle / scooterâ signs posted to say that you cannot bring them into the Centre under any circumstances.
I fully agree with you that it was an big oversight.
If I was active in the process at a time, I wouldâve suggested deprecating bicycle=no and replacing it with either bicycle=dismount (meaning you may push the bike on the side, but not ride it) or bicycle=forbidden (meaning you are not allowed to have a bike with you in any capacity).
That wouldâve made for a clean upgrade path: people would be able to fully unambiguously tag both variants for any new mappings, and also we could have e.g. StreetComplete quest matching bicycle=no and asking Are you allowed to push bike along here? which would retag either dismount or forbidden which would help clean up old values).
It can still be done BTW, if someone has enough nerves, Iâd fully support the idea. But I probably lack the strength to attempt to push it myself.
with emphasize on almost (and probably âin most jurisdictionsâ â there might be some where default is fully forbidden). But still:
bicycle=dismount is absolutely clear in 100% of the cases
vs.
bicycle=no is somewhat ambiguous. It might might same as bicycle=dismount, but rarely it might mean something completely different.
To me, it is absolutely clear which of them every mapper should prefer if they know the actual situation, and that is the former (bicycle=dismount). Intentionally introducing ambiguity when there is no need for it is â suboptimal, to say the least.
As noted in that table, in the United States laws vary significantly in different places, both between and within states. For example, the state of California allows its local governments to make their own laws, and they have. In Los Angeles, bicycle riding on all sidewalks is legal. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, it is illegal for those above the age of 13. Other cities and towns vary significantly (source).
Yes this is very much the case. The rules about bicycles on sidewalks can even vary within a municipality. In my town bicycles are prohibited on sidewalks in the downtown core. In a bit of a wider area around downtown, only people 16 years of age or younger are allowed to ride bicycles on sidewalks. In the rest of the city bicycles are allowed on sidewalks regardless of rider age (city ordinance). There are no signs indicating any of this. You are just supposed to know somehow.
there are few cases where you cannot push bicycle, but for vast majority of bicycle=no you can so this distinction adds absolutely nothing
As explained previously, âfew casesâ includes 100,000 miles of public footpath in England & Wales. Which is where the bicycle=dismount (and, indeed, bicycle=no) tags were invented. Turns out we knew what we were doing?
This is an interesting discussion that I think is worth having from time to time, if only to remind everyone of the arguments.
In fact, there can be no legal definition of highway=footway as it is a tag used in OSM. Pointing this out may seem a trite technicality or a pedantic detail, but Iâd argue that it isnât. In fact, this was once pointed out to me and I am still indebted to @ssundell for it, as it massively shifted the way I think about OSM tags.
The tag descriptions donât contain direct legalese. One reason among many for this is that the legal code changes between placesâsometimes massively. The description partsâof especially top-level tags like the different highway= valuesâcontain relatively general descriptions of the items. The further descriptive tags can be used to tune them further to fit the local (also legal) reality. Furthermore, the legalese in the traffic code itself can be ambiguous. Without going into further details, this is exactly the case in Finland re footways.
I agree with @Mateusz_Konieczny (and others) that the distinction of =dismount and =no is slight, butâŚ
⌠I get this point as well. In another discussion earlier @dieterdreist and @aktiivimallikansalainen pointed out places that forbid even taking a bicycle through them (National Parks and stadiums, I added indoor places).
However, I think that a sensible bicycle router should never suggest a route through neither=dismountnor=no ways. It should only accept a route through such a way if the user places a waypoint on it. So in practice the distinction is somewhat moot.
