Use of highway=cycleway for mtb trails

General talk
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Should mountain bike trails tagged highway=cycleway be re-tagged?

Recently, I came across a case of mountain bike trails being tagged highway=cycleway. As a data consumer of cycleways1, this surprised me, because I was expecting that tag to give me things that looked more like this:

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…and not things that look more like this:

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So I was surprised to find some of the latter category showing up under the cycleway tag. Of course, I can refine my queries to better filter out things using surface and other tags, but I’m wordering if there’s any consensus on using highway=path + bicycle= tagging in cases where cycleway was used on obvious mountain bike trails. The mountain biking wiki page has no mention of using cycleway for this purpose, so I’m thinking that the tag was used in error in cases like this area in Kentucky, USA.

This has been somewhat discussed in other places:

1 or as we would call them in the States, "bike paths".
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I agree with your assessment. Cycleway on an mtb trail is wrong. cycleway is for a “good” path, suitable for a road bike. At least good enuf for a gravel/touring/cyclocross bike.

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I think this is fairly commonly used in the US, at least. As with all path designations, there is a pretty smooth continuum from the two ends of the spectrum of photos that you posted. Conceptually, there is no issue with using cycleway for mtb trails, but I understand the desire to separate between facilities between the two end points of the spectrum.

One can make good arguments for certain paths being useful as part of a transportation network getting the cycleway tag, while those used for recreational purposes being path, but that test has so many edge cases and assumptions that it lead to many paths that are pretty hard to separate into one or the other. I am more of the opinion that using other tags like surface/width/smoothness/mtb:scale are probably the better option.

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I agree as well, but I frequently see that trails that allow bikes, but which are not suitable for road/gravel/touring bikes, have been tagged in this manner, or bicycle=designated. Perhaps one of the editing software systems encourages this, or people just like to assert “this trail was made for people like me.”

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A big cause of this issue is that in iD (editor) there’s only one cycling preset, which sets highway=cycleway. This has been a significant problem here in Michigan (US) where natural surface single track trails are getting mapped in iD, but listed as Cycleway, resulting in tooling routing people down things when they are looking for bike-commuting routes.

I’ve got a back-of-mind project for this winter to get a new set of presets into iD that are more appropriate for mountain bike trails. My initial thoughts are:

highway=path (or track)
bicycle=yes (or designated)
foot=yes (or no or designated)
mtb:scale:imba = 0-4
name=

Funny, looking back above, this is my thread beginning to posit the same thing: Mtb trails bicycle=designated? - #15 by c0nsumer

I think the way to do this is for a bit of consensus to be around MTB trail tagging, get a PR made to iD, and see where it goes?

I’m glad to lead this up; what do you all think?

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Great insight! I see what you mean:

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It would be great if there were a mountain bike trail preset! Thanks @c0nsumer for leading the charge :smiley:

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As far as I can remember, there was already a very, very, very brief discussion about this in the mailing list.

:popcorn:

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Huh, 4.5 years old at this point @mcliquid . Good find on that. And thanks, @ZeLonewolf.

What do you all think of this thread as being the nexus of that? If so, I’ll get a proposal together in the next couple of weeks or so. Cycling / MTBing stuff is ramping down here with the onset of winter (I’m in Michigan, US) and can propose something. If we can get sufficient consensus, I can get the PR put together.

Note that this idea also has the support of the US OSM folks after I brought the issue to their attention a couple months back. I just hadn’t had sufficient time or the nudge to get going, but maybe that time is now?

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On this topic, there is a somewhat stalled discussion on the Carto github about interpretation of access tags on highway=path which is relevant.

Currently Carto only “promotes” highway=path to a cycleway render if bicycle=designated. With the wider interpretation of access tagging introduced in V5.9.0, it would be straightforward to widen this so that highway=path + bicycle=yes was also rendered as a cycleway (this seems to be a fairly common tagging for MTB routes). As long as surface was set (e.g. dirt / ground), then these would be visually distinct from cycleways tagged with a sealed surface.

I appreciate that many people have stopped caring about Carto, but this is more about establishing a consensus around tag interpretation, which can be easily transposed to other styles. It is also relevant to mapper feedback via the default map.

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Hmm. This is interesting.

The idea of rendering (highway=cycleway) and (highway=path and bicycle=designated) kinda irks me because the two are different.

Specifically, it seems common to have trails that are open to mountain bikes bikes, and trails that are specifically designated as mountain bike routes (often coupled with foot=no for dedicated bike-only trails). That doesn’t make them cycleways.

But that said, I would tend to think that this is a renderer problem and so long as the underlying data is tagged right (it’s a path, that is specifically designted for biking, etc) all’s good from the tag data perspective and renderers are free to interpret it how they want, for good or bad.

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There is a certain segment of the OSM community that considers highway=path + bicycle=designated to have the exact same meaning as highway=cycleway. For urban style bicycle paths this isn’t too much of a problem, but for mountain bike trails it has an unfortunate consequence.

Imagine mapper A adding the above a trail to OSM. They aren’t interested in the details so they just tag highway=path and nothing else. Later mapper B notices that it is a mountain bike trail and adds bicycle=designated since it is specifically designated for bicycle use. So far so good. Now mapper C comes along and shortens highway=path + bicycle=designated to highway=cycleway because in their opinion it means the same thing. This idea, introduced in the 2008 path proposal, is not good data modeling and has made quite a mess of things over the years.

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Gur, not to get further down this talk about Carto, but imagine if something was bicycle=designated, highway=path, and horse=designated. Definitely NOT a cycleway, shouldn’t look as that, but definitely exists even in Michigan (where we’re historically a place with separate trails for horses and bikes). I think their overall bike rendering methodology is flawed.

But yeah, not something for us to solve in defining a set of MTB tagging presets. I believe for this effort it should be scoped to solving the problem of iD not having a preset for MTBing, fixing that, and leaving it at that. It’s a small step towards getting things right, but a very necessary one.

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I agree with @jumbanho that there is a smooth continuum of bicycle paths from urban use to mtb, just like there is one for urban foot paths to hiking paths. I think it is not up to the mapper to decide whether a path is a “normal” bicycle path or an mtb trail. It’s eventually much better to let the map user decide for himself whether to use the path or not depending on his equipment, skills, desires, etc. by providing information on the quality of the path using secondary tags like mtb_scale=*, etc. Who are we to decide for them that a path is an mtb trail or suitable for “standard” bicycles?

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the problem with mtb_scale is you need to be knowledgeable about mountain biking difficulty in order to tag it. We need tagging that allows us to make coarse distinctions without requiring specialist knowledge.

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well, the second picture of @ZeLonewolf shows a way that is clearly not suitable for the average Jane or Joe - it’s not suitable for me. It shouldn’t be tagged as highway=cycleway nor bicycle=designated.

In my opinion it could be tagged as mtb=designated though.

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As long as mtb’s are bicycles, I think bicycle access rules apply, with mtb=* as exception tagging. If mtb is seen as a type of bicycle that deserves its own access, I think a designated mtb-only path is bicycle=no + mtb=designated. In that case it does not matter much whether the highway is path or cycleway. Most mtb-tracks will be rough paths, I think.

highway=cycleway + bicycle=no + mtb=designated|yes requires some getting used to, but I think it is correct.

highway=path + bicycle=no + mtb=designated has the information.

You always have to take care to get foot and horse access right. Defaults about foot and horse access to paths and cycleways are country-dependent.

Story (no problem to skip this)
In Nederland, we require a legal cycleway sign to map cycleway, and a legal prohibition sign to map bicycle=no. For public traffic, we do not have official mtb-specific access and prohibition signs. So that is our problem; as usual, some mappers are strict and want to stick to legal access, and other mappers lean toward intent mapping rather than legal. I think mtb-enthousiasts are mostly in the second category…)

If a sign says (or anyone can tell from appearance) that a public path is meant for mtb’s, or mtb-only, it says nothing about legal access. The legal way would require traffic signs to exclude horse, foot and bicycle, with an undersign saying “Except mtb”.

On private land, the owner can use their own signage, which is legally binding as long as it clearly conveys the intention.

In practice, people don’t know all these legal and signage things, and just follow their instincts.

Another issue, both for cyclists and the law, is: what exactly is an mtb? THere are many variants of bicycles, and no strict descriptions of bikes that can use mtb-paths. And, no strict description of what is or is not an mtb path.

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Just no. This is horrible trolltagging, and the Wiki even states something quite similar:

For example somebody wants to produce map of cycleways. Simply processing highway=cycleway, highway=path, highway=footway and standard access tags (especially bicycle=designated) should be enough to avoid listing fake ones. Data consumer in that situation should not be expected to check for proposed=yes, demolished=yes, construction=yes, completely_fictional=yes, operational_status=closed or end_date=1990.

And I think you’re overthinking the problem: mtb is simply a type of bicycle, and will never be legally permitted or proscribed separately from other bicycle types. It’s just like 4x4 vs. car.

Where the “map only legal limitations” school of thought fails is the practical usability (and safety) of the map: just as a city car owner should not expect to safely use a random highway=track (even if legally permitted to do so), a normal bike owner should not expect to safely use a highway=path. Insisting it should be mapped a cycleway because rules is downright irresponsible.

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I don’t believe this distinction matters.

Back to the original issue, IMO it’s one of what is a cycleway (OSM pretty clearly defines this in the wiki) and what is a trail used for mountain biking.

I believe, and this seems like consensus, mountain biking is riding a bicycle (regardless of kind) on a natural surface trail that is something other than designed cycling infrastructure. The latter is a cycleway, and the former is just a “path” or “track” (what many places call two track, or a wider path than a single track path but not a road) generally with a natural surface.

Therefore, for mountain bike trails there’s no need to do anything other than tag it as such. path or track, and cycling is permitted. And then with additional mountain biking specific attributes as possible. (mtb:scale, mtb:scale:imba are the big ones, mtb:scale:uphill, incline, and mtb:description are also useful.)

In almost all cases the “mountain bike trail” is just another trail where other activities are also allowed. But if not, they can be restricted via existing access tags.

Therefore, my goal is to get a preset in iD that reflects this and offers appropriate options. Something to give mappers an option for a path that is used for bicycling that is NOT a cycleway with sufficient preset tag options. Because the overarching goal is to make it easier for mappers to map “mountain bike trails”, which are trails for riding bicycles that are NOT cycleways, tagged as such.

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I did not insist on that, and I did not say “because rules”.

I said, if mtb is a kind of bicycle, and the mtb-track is meant for mtb’s (designated), and people can see that, then highway=cycleway is informationally correct. Then for access, you specify that all kinds of bicycle except mtb are forbidden. Correct. It just looks strange.

I also said, most mtb-tracks will not be signed as cycleways, and that it does not really matter for the access: bicycle=no except mtb=yes.

As for cycleway maps, since mtb is a kind of bicycle, mtb tracks are cycleways, so they are not fake. The wiki is about cycleways that do not yet or no longer exist but have been mapped anyway.

Am I overthinking the problem? I don’t know. The question is how to cater for mtb tracks.

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I believe this falls apart because there is no clear distinction between what and what is not an MTB. But it doesn’t matter because a bicycle is an object, mountain biking is an activity. The type of bicycle that one can use for “mountain biking” varies with personal preference and OSM doesn’t need to care about that.

Therefore, we do not need to care about the kind of bicycle being used. We solely need to care about the trail and it’s conditions and permissions; whether or not the “mountain biking” activity is supported/allowed/not-disallowed.

And to me this breaks down to two things:

  1. cycleway, which is pretty clearly defined by OSM as dedicated cycling infrastructure for all kinds of bicycling.

  2. Trails for mountain biking (the activity), which is an amalgamation of paths and tracks with access and other supporting tags.

Therefore, all we need to do to foster this using iD – the most accessible editor – is to get a sufficient preset defined so that mappers documenting bicycle-accessible trails don’t mark everything as cycleway.

I mean this as kindly as possible, but I believe you are overthinking it.

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