Please, improve that wiki page of something is wrong or missing.
The cycleway tag is used on street highways to document the cycling infrastructure that is present on or next to them. You document this tag as a subtag of highway=cycleway. I don’t think that the same key should have two different meanings. I am also not sure if this tag may be used for some people on street highways with the meaning of “you can cycle on the sidewalk here”.
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overpass turbo - 67 uses, 1.3% of cycleway=sidewalk is used like cycleway=separate
In general yes, but this in use tag is different. I guess that it can be candidate for automated edit if there is a replacement considered as superior and people could be convinced that replacement is worth it.
Or maybe some alternative needs to be invented.
It may be also worth mentioning that this tag breaks typical use of cycleway tag. Maybe with existing alternative tagging considered as preferred.
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Maybe something like cycleway:type=sidewalk would work. Or using is_sidepath instead, which also has the advantage of being compatible with path, footway and cycleway, removing the need for three separate tags meaning the same thing.
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Add is_sidepath link in See also, but without mentioning potential reasons for preferring it.
footway=sidewalk is quite deeply rooted at this point
We also use cycleway=crossing as the counterpart to footway=crossing, so I don’t see why we wouldn’t want to have a counterpart to footway=sidewalk. It’s just that to me, the meaning of “sidewalk” is inherently tied to “walking” and not “riding a bike”. But since I’m not a native speaker, I’m not going to argue about the wording of the value and leave it to the experts.
My understanding of footway=sidewalk is that there is path that is physically separate, usually with a kerb, from the road surface. Does reusing the sidewalk value mean that bikes can use the same path or have thier own?
Ugh, this is a bit of a mess.
is_sidepath=yes is a useful tag and in wider use. I don’t think it’s necessarily wise to promote tag proliferation.
cycleway=sidewalk is problematic because, as @Discostu36 says, cycleway= is traditionally used as an attribute of a motor-traffic highway.
I’d prefer people to be encouraged to use is_sidepath=yes tbh, even if the key itself is a bit Denglish.
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Fell free to add it to wiki page! (we have some wiki pages that are basically “this tag is terrible idea for following reasons”)
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I guess the documentation of Key:cycleway should be splited in 2 Parts
The key cycleway(:both/left/right) at roads describes if cycleways are present and what kind:
Values:
- no
- track
- lane
- separate
- shared_lane
- shared_busway
- shoulder
- yes
- both (-> cycleway:both)
- left (-> cycleway:left)
- right (-> cycleway:right)
- opposite(_*) (->oneway:biycle=no)
- shared (->cycleway=no)
The key cycleway at highway=cycleway (173338 (17%) x ) is used to describe the type of the cycleway
Values:
- crossing 147045 (85%)
- link 1882 (1.0%)
- lane 1512 (0.9%)
- sidewalk 6911 (4%) (-> is_sidepath=yes?)
- shared 5353 (3%) ? (-> segregated=yes?)
- track2754 (1.5%) ?
- traffic_island 1860 (1.0%) (the part of the crossing on the traffic_island?)
- segregated 1404 (-> segregated=yes)
- sidepath 1284 (-> is_sidepath=yes)
- on_street 1038 (-> cycleway=lane?)
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That escalated fast by questioning the use of cycleway=* as an attribute of a cycleway instead of existence of infrastructure.
I guess another reason to deprecate cycleway=* in favour of cycleway:both=* to denote the existence of cycling infrastructure on both sides of a highway..
On topic: It’s definitively an interesting choice because “sidewalk” implies one can walk on a sidepath and not, well, cycle on it. However, a lot of ped-cycleways (both mixed and shared) are repurposed sidewalks and others are pure cycleways (with pedestrians discouraged / forbidden) which are repurposed sidewalk so I don’t think this tag will really hurt it per-se.
cycleway=sidewalk in general makes little sense. Sidewalk/pavement cycling is prohibited in many (most?) jurisdictions, and in others only conditionally allowed. Sidewalks/pavements are generally understood to be for walking.
The wish to indicate on the road line that there is an adjacent cycleway line is already covered by cycleway=separate, which is more established and more frequently used.
If there’s a sign indicating a foot and cycle path, it’s not a sidewalk.
I propose that the wiki entry for cycleway=sidewalk says that this use of the tag is discouraged and that a separately mapped cycleway can be indicated with cycleway=separate.
The most 6911/7433 occurrences are together with highway=cycleway at the same way.
In this content it may mean different things (one may ask the mapper who did this)
- is_sidepath=yes
- or it is a shared cycle/footpath (foot=designated/bicycle=designated)
- or both
A footway (foot=desigated) with bicycle = yes is not a cycleway, so this case makes no sense
As all these can be expressed with documented tags we should discourage to use cycleway=sidewalk
but sometimes there are footways + bicycle=yes (e.g. in Germany where this implies maxspeed:bicycle=walk)
Agreed.
Yes, these fall in the “conditionally allowed” category. In Norway, this is the law (cycling is allowed on pavements, but only at walking speed if there are pedestrians, and only when the number of pedestrians is “low”).
yes but those cases (also the German one) I wouldn’t tag as cycleway but as footway
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Maybe it is not as easy as I thought.
cycleway=sidewalk may be the analogy to footway=sidewalk. I’m not sure what to suggest instead: is_sidepath is only a proposal and cycleway=sidepath is less frequent used.
What should we suggest instead cycleway=sidewalk (7433 x) (if it means it is a sidepath):
- is_sidepath=yes (5092 x on cycleway, 8036 on path, 11665 x on footway)
- cycleway=sidepath (3836 x on cycleway, 1815 path=sidepath)
- nothing
- something else
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voters
In the case of footway=sidewalk, it tells us that the separately mapped footway is a sidewalk. A footway and a sidewalk are legally mostly the same thing; the main difference is the construction. footway=sidewalk is an alternative to mapping sidewalk=* on the main road line, for a number of practical reasons.
A cycleway cannot legally also be a sidewalk anywhere I know of, and conversely a sidewalk cannot legally have a cycleway on it. If there is a sign saying there’s a cycleway on something that looks like a sidewalk, it’s no longer a sidewalk – it’s a cycleway. If there’s no sign, it’s just a sidewalk, where cycling is, is not, or is conditionally allowed according to local laws.
There’s really no analogy to footway=sidewalk. It’s completely different, and also very hard to find a meaningful and logical interpretation of.
There is a analogy in usage (footway=sidewalk was transfered to path=sidewalk and cycleway=sidewalk), but it makes no sense in taking the words by its meaning. But I think in the result we are the same meaning. It should not be used.
BTW:
4821 of the 7433 uses are together with foot!=no but 1904 without a foot tag
3500 x in UK
1850 x in France
Yeah, that figures. A lot of people just don’t know how to tag roads not meant for cars. If these were in “my” area, I would definitely change the tagging (as I have done a lot).
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If there’s a sign indicating a foot and cycle path, it’s not a sidewalk.
yes, I don’t think this is in question, supposedly this tagging suggests that there is a sidewalk which permits bicycles (bicycle=yes, de:Fahrräder frei), so it is not a cycleway.