San Francisco Bicycle Routes

Thanks to San Francisco's high density, compact size and the w:San Francisco Bicycle Plan (unanimously approved by the SF Board of Supervisors in 2009), San Francisco has a comprehensive numbered bicycle network. In OSM, these routes are designated as part of a local cycleway network (relations tagged network=lcn and cycle_network=US:CA:SF). All route=bicycle relations should have those two tags plus a ref=* tag with the number of the route. The numbering protocol has a few simple rules, which mimic the federal Interstate system, the United States Bicycle Route System and in the case of the "even/odd" rules, California's state highway network:

• East-West routes are even-numbered,
• North-South routes are odd-numbered,
• Spur/belt/alternate routes are preceded by a hundreds-place digit and
• Route numbers generally increase from lower numbers in eastern and northern San Francisco to higher numbers in western and southern San Francisco.

City/County infrastructure and routes appear to be mostly/well mapped but no comprehensive survey has been taken and compared to existing OSM data (an OverPass Turbo query can be compared to City-published data). There is correct tagging for infrastructure (Class I = highway=cycleway for "dedicated bikeway," Class II = cycleway=lane for "paint-delineated bike lanes" and Class III = bicycle=yes for "Bike Route"-signed or officially-mapped routes, or cycleway=shared_lane for "sharrows" on roadways where bicycles may ride anywhere in the traffic lane, sharing the roadway with automobiles) AND there is correct tagging for routes, as noted above.

Some bike shops have been entered, but relatively few bike racks (especially larger bicycle "parking areas") are mapped.

See also:

• BBBike @ San Francisco - a cycle route planner for San Francisco
• BBBike @ Berkeley - a cycle route planner for Berkeley