i can speak for my country, Poland and here since this decade we are starting to see a lot of very modern standard bike infrastructure, but we also have the old one, so there is a lot to compare.
As for cultural differences, this is directly connected iwth local law, which differs slightly across different countries, so there has to be exceptions marked everytime those arise.
Basically we have cycleways and bike lanes.
Those two are very different, coz
cycleways
marked with a round blue bike street sign on a pole
bidirectional by default, unless specifically marked with signs only on a pole
there can be no actual lanes on cycleways if there is something painted, this has no legal consequence
we map em always by separate lines tagged highway=cycleway|path with access=designated and so on depending how theyâre shared with pedestrians
bike lanes
marked with painted surface signs and often additionally marked with a sign on a pole explaining all lanes on the street
always one way, can never be bidirectional
always on a street, never outside of it
we basically map em by tags on the highway line, rarely by separate highway=cycleway if there is a huge kerb or spaces for parked cars, but everyone likes to do it a bit their way.
yeah, but in NL you actually have streets marked with only bike sign and sidewalk is designed there same as for any other street accesible also by any vehicles. Here in Poland all modern bike infrastructure is marked with and too many people refuse using tags like sidewalk=right for the way, coz it is already tagged bicycle=designated foot=designated highway=path and yeah i kinda find it weird, but designing brand new tag that does exactly the same (point right/left side where footway is) as a tag thatâs already, is wasted affort as well. At the same time i myself refuse to remove foot=designated tag from such way.
The sidewalk tag indicates the presence an additional path alongside a road, usually height-separated, that is not drawn in. It does not refer to the infrastructure itself, but an additional path not drawn in.
Your example is of a shared-use path (bicycle and foot) which does not have an additional path alongside it. The foot part is part of the path itself, not alongside it.
That is a rather arbitrary distinction. Our cycleways are regularly separated from pavements or pedestrian areas with kerbs, slanted paving stones, flush paving stones, or sometimes just paint, but theyâre still sign-posted the same.
The posted sign with a vertical separator | means mandatory pedestrian and cyclist parts of the road, and Iâve never seen an example of such a road where there wasnât a marked separation between them.
Here if iâm speaking about modern infrastructure, the bike path is always separated from a footway with a kerb and the footway is higher as well, only not that much and we still use for it everywhere ;D
And virtually there is little difference to what @balchen is describing in his country.
Itâs the same tho. You canât ride bike on the foot side and canât walk on the bike part
But 2 years ago those scooters and other devices were introduced and defined by road law, by us specified also by small_electric_vehicle .
Some of those vehicles can go both by the footway and the cycleway without much limitation^^ Is the same valid for you country? How does people riding roller skates are allowed to commute?
That is a not uncommon layout, but there is a lot of variation. The sidewalk may be raised or not, different paving or not, have its own traffic sign or not, and this may change styling and signing at every streetcorner, crossing, or random point for no obvious reason. As long as the designated foot section keeps accompanying the road or cycleway close enough to be a part of the road or cycleway, it can be seen as, hence tagged as, a sidewalk.
If they see good reason to draw the pedestrian part as a separate way, mappers can choose to do that. Mapperâs judgement, so varying historic and current mapping/tagging styles can be found in the database, as usual in OSM.
It seems that some countries use the pedestrian and cycle signs with horisontal and vertical separation, and other countries use the pedestrian and cycle sign with no separation and the cycle-only sign.
NO, where I live, does the latter. It seems NL also does this. PL and DE seem to do the former.
Hence, you need to read the signs carefully to spot the separation (or lack of) to know what they mean.
also, not sure what you mean by âcombined with a pavementâ - painted on surface of way? Then - as far as I know - it has no legal implication if vertical traffic sign (standing one) is not present.
No, but we, NL and others do, and the context was that in NL, they use sidewalk=* for this situation, and so do we.
My reasoning is if the signs are legally the same, and hence the infrastructure is legally the same, there is no cause for the OSM mapping to be different.
So the PL mapping could easily be the same, it seems?
I think the vertically separated sign is even âstrongerâ than the square cycleway sign, since walking on a cycleway is still allowed.
@balchen, @Mateusz_Konieczny
Legal meaning of those signs is not exactly the same, coz the first one marks right side of the road as designated precisely for pedestrians. At least here in Poland you are not allowed to park a vehicle there.
The square one meaning is much more equal to , Iâd assume. But i never saw it used for a wide path and have lines painted on it, to mark that part of it is for pedestrians like a sidewalk. We do have streets for all types of vehicles with shoulder painted lines and those marked as specifically for pedestrians.
You know, here everything is very car centered. Bikes are not treated as real vehicles in the minds of wide public ;D And hence those differences i think.
It seems that a pavement/sidewalk can be a part of any road, and is never sign-posted anyway. This would be contrary to a footway running parallell to a cycleway, which also exist.
for cultural reasons it would be described as segregated sidewalk and cycleway.
Sidewalk and cycleway as property of main road, or as objects on the same level if they are not attached to the road.
Sidewalk/cycleway would be very likely treated as subordinate part of carriageway for cars (sadly, on all level from design, construction and maintenance).
Footway would not be treated as subordinate part of cycleway.
note: I have not verified this in some wider polling
and too many people refuse using tags like 
is not exactly the same, coz the first one marks right side of the road as 
, Iâd assume. But i never saw it used for a wide path and have lines painted on it, to mark that part of it is for pedestrians like a sidewalk. We do have streets for all types of vehicles with 