Should I mark cycleway as separate to a road when there is a sidewalk?

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1

I’ve been using StreetComplete for mapping areas in OSM, and one of the questions it will ask for a road is

Is there a bicycle lane or path here? What Type

If the road does not have a bicycle lane, but there is a sidewalk mapped separately that is adjacent to the roadway that allows bicycles (but is not explicitly marked), should the road be marked as “Displayed separately on the map” (i.e. cycleway=separate ) or should it be set to “none” (i.e. cycleway=no)?

2

Is sidewalk way tagged with bicycle=yes ?

In such cases I was using cycleway:*=separate tag family

though =no would not be terrible either

3

If you are not sure that cycling on that footway is allowed, you cannot answer the question. Then there is the related question of the meaning cycleway=separate? Is this is only information or does it mean for a router to send cyclists on that side path, or does it mean that cyclists have to use that dide path by law? This lottery mapping approach is easily misguiding well-intentioned new mappers.

4

no, it does NOT mean this at all

luckily with such misunderstanding and adding such tags is not breaking data (though they make data worse if they remove valid =separate operating under such misconception)

for “cyclists should use path (possibly with some exceptions)” use bicycle=use_sidepath, maybe bicycle:forward or bicycle:backward may be needed

router may use it in this way but it is not obligated to do so

5

  • If you know for a fact that riding bicycles are allowed on that sidewalk, then you should answer “separate”.

  • If there is a sidewalk, but riding bicycle is not allowed on it, then you should answer “none”.

6

In my case, nothing is explicitly marked, but I believe the standard here is “Cycling is allowed”, so I’ll go with “separate”. Thanks

7

I disagree: in a few cities/towns I’ve lived, sidewalks allowed bicycles except in certain blocks. That does not mean that a sidewalk is bike infrastructure. It’s ill-advised to ride a bike on the sidewalk for many reasons (sight lines, expected traffic for drivers crossing the sidewalk, surface condition).

If a sidewalk is dedicated for bicycles, is built for bicycles, and perhaps is signed for bicycles, then I’d tag cycleway:*=separate, but otherwise I would argue it’s misleading.

8

I agree (with the disagreement). cycleway=separate should not be tagged just because bicycles are allowed on the sidewalk. Bicycles are technically allowed on most of the sidewalks in my area but the standard sidewalk design does not consider cyclists and makes for a poor cycling experience. cycleway:*=separate is used to indicate where there is better infrastructure designed with cyclists in mind (like a multi-use path or dedicated bike path).

9

@marsfan, it might be helpful to know which area you’re mapping in and what the law says there.

I can only offer an outsider’s perspective:

  • In Norway, you can generally cycle on sidewalks and AFAIK they use cycleway:*=no for such roads (example road, Mapillary).
  • In some other European countries, cycling on the sidewalk can be allowed with a sign.
    • If the law makes it clear that you’re still cycling on a sidewalk, which is not a bike facility, and you have to be mindful around pedestrians, like in Germany (example image), then cycleway:*=no is used.
    • In some European countries, it’s common for streets to have a shared bike path where you’d expect a sidewalk, with explicit signage (example road in Sweden, Mapillary). AFAIK those path would be tagged with bicycle=designated (and/or highway/cycleway) and the road would then be cycleway:*=separate in those countries.

It seems to me that similar principles should be applied in the US.

@Matija_Nalis I’d be interested to know why you came to that conclusion, is that how it works in Croatia?

10

I’m mapping in Arizona, I did some cursory research and it seems that bicycles are allowed by default here (with signs to indicate where they are not allowed).

@ezekielf makes a good point about the difference. In general though it sounds like this might be an ambiguous area that could use further documentation. [1] As such, I’m removing the “Solution” mark I placed before, as it seems some more discussion is needed.

A sort of secondary question: I’ve marked some roadways with separate before I thought about asking here, so I might want to revert those now. Is there a good tool for going through my history and finding those edits? The “history” feature under my profile is not exactly easy to work through when I have a bunch of small edits uploaded via streetcomplete.

  1. Side Note: I’m new to OSM so I don’t know if there’s really like a higher level of authority that makes decisions about tagging and rules. ↩︎

11

In Croatia, sidewalk[1] can either be designated for only pedestrians, or designated for both pedestrians and bicycles, or (very rarely) designated for only bicycles.

If it is intended for the bicycles to ride on them (often looks like this) (i.e. there is separate OSM way tagged as highway=cycleway, or as highway=footway + bicycle=designated, or as highway=path + bicycle=designated - probably with other tags like foot, segregated etc.), then on main road you’d add cycleway:*=separated[2].

In any case, for that sidepath to be bicycle=designated (or highway=cycleway) over here it must explicitly be marked with either horizontal signalization (paint on the sidepath with bicycle drawn) or with vertical signalization (i.e. traffic sign B40, B42, B42-1 or B43), or both[3].

If both forms of signalization are missing , then cycling is directly prohibited by law, but almost always[4] you can still push them (i.e. that sidewalk would be tagged as highway=footway + footway=sidewalk + bicycle=dismount)

yes, that is what Croatia has often too, and what what I was talking about primarily. Note that this foot=designated + bicycle=designated sidepath can be either segregated=yes[5] or segregated=no.

In any case, if it was bicycle=designated on that sidepath, it would be cycleway:*=separate on the main road (which seemed to me was what OP was asking [6].

We don’t have those. In Croatia we have either:

  • designated for cycling only (very rare)
  • designated for both cyclists and pedestrians (quite often, can be either segregated=yes/no)
  • forbidden for cycling, i.e. pedestrian only[7] (very often)

So I have no idea how I’d tag such German-alike cases (most probably[8], I would not be tagging cycleway:*=* on main road at all, and even for sidepath itself I’d consult local community to get an understanding of their specific laws and bicycle usages, and above all see their consensus on specific mapping practices in such cases – as I have a suspicion that might vary depending on country. I seem to recall some Germans disagreeing about tagging of those[9])

  1. more properly called sidepath to avoid implied meanings; i.e. generically separate way parallel to the road ↩︎

  2. except in certain rare cases where there is additionally also a bicycle lane in addition to separate cycleway ↩︎

  3. actually, AFAIK it should be both according to current traffic law, but sometimes it isn’t, which results in signalisation=illegal; but I digress ↩︎

  4. unless there is rare extra sign prohibiting even pushing bicycles, in which case it would be bicycle=no + bicycle:pushing=no ↩︎

  5. which in turn might have different separation=* values ↩︎

  6. which bicycle=* value to tag on that sidepath, i.e. when to call something “a bicycle path”, is more complex issue, and seems to me to likely be jurisdiction-dependent ↩︎

  7. well, kind of. Who is considered a pedestrian is more complex: there is term " pomoćna pješačka sredstva" / “pedestrian assistive devices” in our ZOSPNC law which handles things like rollerblades, non-motorized skateboards and kickscooters and skis etc. and even children bicycles, and there is whole motorized-wheelchair issue too ↩︎

  8. well, really most probably, I personally would not map things at all in foreign country unless they seem perfectly clear and unambiguous, which this doesn’t ↩︎

  9. but I could be misremembering. In any case, I do not intend to be involved in arguing on those contentious cases when I do not have any experience with them ↩︎

12

osmcha.org should be up to the task I think (filter by dates, country and your username to limit the scope; and filter via changeset comment “Specify whether there are cycleways” should be faster then using OSM features tags, although you can use it for further filtering if needed). It might be slow, though.

Or, if the edits were recent and few of them, you can use undo menu (in lower-left corner) in StreetComplete itself (when changes were already uploaded, it will revert them). (I guess that option is too late for this specific case, but maybe it might help you or someone else in the future)

13

Reading through this more, I think the correct answer is I should be marking cycleway:*=no

This is what it is like here in the US, but without even the bicycle signs, and the law tends to be a bit murkier (they don’t really explicitly allow or disallow it in a lot of places. Its more assumed than explicitly outlined).

So I’ll mark this correct.

14

Thanks. I think this is probably going to be best. I’ve got a fair number I marked “separte” that I probably should go back and change to “no”