Dashed/Soft Cycle Lanes

General talk
41

As Richard has already mentioned, we normally tag the meaning of the road marking, not what the road marking looks like.

42

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 :slight_smile:

(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)

43

C is in my opinion a cyclestreet → https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=691948#p691948

Also, i had a long discussion about ‘cyclestreet’ on Dutch and Belgium forum , to make a proposal for making a new key ; highway=cyclestreet →
https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=56221
https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=54494

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’ … :roll_eyes:

44

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?

45

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.

46

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”?

47

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.

48

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.

49

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.

Okay, once more, in a nutshell (for details see this document):

  1. cycleway=lane
    Any kind of cycle lane

  2. cycleway=lane + cycleway:lane=exclusive
    Cycle lanes strictly reserved exclusively for cyclists, segregated from the rest of the road usually through a continuous line.

  3. 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

  4. cycleway=shared_lane
    Any kind of road marking that indicates that cyclists and motorists ought to share a lane.

  5. 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

  6. 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.

50

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.

51

So, what now?

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:

  1. continuous / dashed / pictograms - tag what you see. In Belgium, all cycle lanes are dashed

  2. exclusive / shared / pictograms - tag the implicit meaning of what you see. shared might be confusing when used together with cycleway=shared_lane

  3. 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.

52

Edit: Nevermind this.

53

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.