[mkgmap-dev] Footways/cycleways and motorcars

Fri Jun 17 12:54:24 BST 2011

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:01:30PM -0700, Paul Johnson wrote:
>Interesting.  Curious...what differentiates a cycleway from a path in 
>your opinion?  The mixed, and apparently not bicycle priority, use of 
>both examples makes me wonder what makes it a cycleway as opposed to 
>path + bicycle=designated + foot=designated?

The sad fact is that there are very few if any real cycleways in 
Finland. Most ways are bicycle=designated,foot=designated,segregated=no.  
A few municipalities have the habit of drawing a white line in the 
middle (segregated=yes).

I read somewhere that the Vienna convention on traffic signs says that 
cycleway use should only be obligatory when the cycleway is segregated.  
Finland is violating this convention by not distinguishing between 
segregated and non-segregated ways in the legalese. Luckily the cycleway 
use is not being enforced, and even the regulation says that cycleway 
use is voluntary on "short trips" when the way is on the left side of 
the road and/or (can't remember which) it is safer not to use it.

There was a lengthy discussion on the users:Finland forum on 
forum.openstreetmap.org about a year ago. One school of thought seems to 
be to tag with the "highest allowed form of transportation". Because 
cycleway>footway, they would seem to be happy with highway=cycleway, 
foot=yes. But "path" is not strictly "bigger than" or "less than" 
"footway". I do not think that there exists a total order of 
non-motorized means of transport. A partial order perhaps. Therefore, it 
is IMO not feasible to use a single highway=* value. Instead, multiple 
keys are needed.

I try to follow the hints set by JOSM. It draws 
highway=path,foot=designated,bicycle=designated as a dashed line, 
alternating the colors of footway and cycleway. I also add 
surface=paved/unpaved,lit=yes/no,moped=yes/no,snowplowing=yes/no 
whenever possible or known. Some of my edits have been replaced with 
highway=cycleway.  Luckily the other tags have been preserved.

Here is another example of a non-segregated cycleway/footway where 
motorcars are allowed to destination: 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/45249263

An alternative form of tagging might be 
highway=residential,access=destination,foot=designated,bicycle=designated.  
I use that when there is a red/yellow traffic sign "motor vehicles not 
permitted" with an additional sign that allows traffic to destination.

	Marko