Difference between access=designated and access=yes

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@Peter_Elderson

yes	designated
Legally allowed	Legally appointed as the way for this transport method

I was paraphrasing this interpretation as “tolerated” versus “welcome” – the difference between “Eh, sure, why not,” and “Why yes, of course.” The fact remains that yours is only one of several common interpretations.

@Peter_Elderson

yes: you are allowed to cycle there, no matter what type of highway this road is. Suitability for regular bicycles is not certain.

designated: this path is legally and practically meant for cycling. You may expect it is suitable for cycling on regular bicycles.

In other words, a bicycle routing profile should ignore the bicycle=yes tag when deciding whether to route along a given way. As you’re probably aware, precious few routers have ever interpreted bicycle=yes in this manner.

It sounds like you’d tag my county’s expressways as bicycle=yes. I could get behind that, but for different reasons than what you’ve described:

@Minh_Nguyen

File:2022-03-28 08 32 10 View west-northwest along Santa Clara County Route G6 (Central Expressway) from the overpass for North Sunnyvale Avenue in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County, California.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

This expressway=yes has a bike lane. Can you see it? It’s indistinguishable from a shoulder, except for an occasional “Begin Turn Lane – Yield to Bikes” sign at an off-ramp. The local highway department has a policy of keeping the bike lane as low-key as possible. They don’t want casual cyclists to find out about it, because the heavy traffic at 50 mph would be hazardous. Nevertheless, this is a popular commuting route for more experienced cyclists.

@Minh_Nguyen

Within this region, a normal bike lane would be festooned with bike-related signs, but here it’s just the bare minimum that the local authorities can get away with. They wanted to prohibit cycling and walking, but cycling advocates pointed to state law that only allows them to prohibit cyclists and pedestrians from freeways, not expressways. As a compromise, they took down the prohibition signs but don’t facilitate non-motorized traffic.