Use of highway=cycleway for mtb trails

General talk
61

Has April Fool’s Day come around early this year?

2 Likes
62

Maybe we could, in addition to the highway=possibly_dangerous_path proposed here for hiking trails, create another temporary highway=mtb_trail for cycleways that a mapper considers suitable for mtb only but isn’t able to add an mtb_scale tag to. This should be understood to imply fixme=I think this is suitable for mtb only, not for average bicycles, but I'm not able to assign an mtb_scale value to it so could an experienced mtb-using mapper survey this path and add it asap. I.e I agree with @Richard , as long as these new highway types are considered to be temporary, to be replaced asap by highway=path + secondary tags describing the quality of the path.

63

How about smoothness?

That is already used across a wide variety of highway types.

5 Likes
64

As a guy who likes to map mountain bike trails, I also believe that smoothness would go a long way and that there is no need for new tags. Anyone can guess a smoothness to add it and if your router does not support it, well, don’t map for the render/router.

As someone has written already, “highways” designated for cycling are a spectrum. There are super smooth asphalt cycleways for road bikes. There are singletrails that one can go with children, a trekking bike and a trailer. There are downhill trails that an average person could not walk through, let alone cycle. And most of them are something in between.

They are all bicycle=designated, made for cycling. Add at least smoothness and if you feel like it, add also surface, mtb:scale, mtb:scale:imba, mtb:type… Access tags are for legal access restrictions, please don’t use them for a perceived difficulty rating aka “No bike could possibly go down this path” or “Walking here is too dangerous”.

2 Likes
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Many of them are multi-use, popular with mountain bikers and hikers alike. Many of them are informal and not specifically dedicated mountain biking. In my area, this is the norm.

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Firstly, this sentence refers to routes, not paths. And yes, there were times in OSM when routes and paths were not so strictly differentiated.

And to be honest: yes, it says something about off-road and hills and yes, I can also imagine cycleways off-road and over hills. But I wouldn’t think of associating a cycleway with a mtb trail like this one. Never!

Speaking of which:

Some want a flat route to work, others seek out the hills as a relaxing challenge.

This is a cycleway: :slight_smile:

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source

Quote from the article:

So in the end, the hilly ‘adventure cycle path’ was built: ‘You have to see it as a bit of a sport,’ said the spokeswoman. ‘If you can’t manage the hills, you can’t manage the mountain that follows.’

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Problem here: The OSM repertoire does not match the locally used scheme.

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Note: This is in regard to difficulty designations of trails; typically seen in the US as Green Circle, Blue Square, Black Diamond, Double-Black Diamond.

I think it’s more an issue of whether OSM tagging should match what the local park authority has designed the trail, or if the mapper should assess the difficulty themselves before tagging. I lean towards the former – matching what has already been designated – for numerous reasons.

1 Like
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Unless reality is totally different from the official designation. It happens.

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Both. The first is 100% verifiable, the second provides international consistency (assuming there is an OSM wide standard to assess the quality of highways, which is what mtb_scale, sac_scale, smoothness, etc. attempt).

1 Like
71

Few thoughts based on a pretty significant and successful MTB-trail mapping effort in Finland (over last 10 years):

  • UK “trail centres” vs. US “multi-use trails” vs. Finland “right to roam everywhere, incl. private land, on foot, bike & horse unless otherwise specifically forbidden” → makes for a very different mapping problems…
  • …For one thing we want to make quite clear what is built as a “common” road network for cycling, that is what highway=cycleway means locally: for normal bikes, for normal people, to travel from A to B. surface=paved means it’s good for road cycling too. Simple tagging, guaranteed interpretation for map users.
  • Most (+95%) of our (mtb)-trails are just ordinary forest paths (and these exist everywhere, also very much within cities): “trail maintenance” is not only non-existant, it is actually mostly forbidden. mtb:scale is based on subjective assessment - and after a bit of effort I think we have gotten it calibrated pretty good across the whole country. BTW smoothness is not used at all, as it is quite useless in its current form for describe “bicyclability”.
  • We use mtb:scale as a key tag, but do not overly focus on “mtb” - rather we consider gravel biking, trail running, hiking etc. as well - all benefit from knowing about a path, even if there are differences on what e.g. mtb:scale=2 means to each of them
  • highway=trunk does not only define the function & importance, but also implies accurately the physical characteristic. highway=track is the total opposite and great in demonstrating the massive weakness in the highway-tag. In terms of cycling a track can mean practically anything from “like a” cycleway to a forest tractor dual track that is non-rideable for MTB and non-enjoyable for a trail runner. path is not as bad as track, but only if its use is limited to specifically exclude a built cycleway…
  • …In theory all mappers provide additional tags (and use those tags correctly) to add flavor to the highway-tag, fixing its weakness. In practise it is much better if highway-tag alone conveys a decently specific meaning, allowing map consumers (esp. routers) to avoid stupid decisions. Every now and then a mapper proposes OSM wiki inspired broader use of highway=path also for non traffic signed footpaths and cycleways - luckily so far people have understood why it would be a bad idea.
  • As long as path is not used for built ways, we do not see (from our local perspective) a need for new tags like highway=mtb_trail. Natural evolution in mapping is that there might first be a highway=path (from a non trail mapper) which then invites an addition of mtb:scale-tag. For designated and marked mtb-trails route-relation works well.
  • Tagging for increasingly popular gravel-biking remains bit of a challenge: there is no tag quite like mtb:scale for gravel and oftentimes on forest roads it would be quite useful to know how fast & comfortable they are.
3 Likes
72

Much like the use of motorcycle:type= to specify offroad motorcycle routes:

Key:motorcycle:type - OpenStreetMap Wiki

I think specifying the type of bicycle for the cycleway would be necessary:

Key:bicycle:designated:type

Key:bicycle:designated:type - OpenStreetMap Wiki