Talk:Tag:bicycle=use sidepath

Link to previous Talk

This wiki is the successor of the wiki use_sideway. For more backgound info see this wiki and it's Talk page --PeeWee32 19:10, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Plan to expand use of the tag Tag:bicycle=use_sidepath

I think that the tag should be extended to highways where it is not compulsory, but compellingly practical to do so for safety reasons.

I've recently surveyed the A4 Great West Road and the A30 Great South West Road and they have the signs that you described in the article. The same also exists in Barcelona, although I did not add these tags there, hence there must be a similar law in Barcelona.

The speed limits on these roads I surveyed go up to 50 mph, or 80 kmh. This would make it virtually impossible to use the dual carriageway itself: our drivers in London are not usually the kindest in the planet because when I cycled on it once, the drivers were furious and then try to force me onto the sidewalk. These roads don't have specific prohibitions on cyclists, nor it is compulsory to use the tracks, but from what and most cyclists are likely to experience when on the A4 proper, it looks de facto compulsory.

I can't seem to use bicycle=discouraged because according to Key:access there has to be a sign.

Can you suggest better options for this scenario, or should we expand the scope of "use sidewalk" on this case?

--Amaroussi (talk) 16:18, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't have some any suggestion at the moment (although it wouldn't be hard to invent a new tag for this situation).

However, I believe that bicycle=use_sidepath should not be used in your situation because access keys (such as bicycle) are limited to legal restrictions. And we should be able to distinguish whether cycling is not legal, or whether it's legal but not recommended. --Tordanik 18:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

What is your opinion on bicycle=discouraged or bicycle=unsuitable. Which would work better in your opinion? --Amaroussi (talk) 20:07, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Tordanik. The problem you describe should not be solved by using a tag that has a different meaning. My suggestion would be to add the maxspeed tags to these roads in order to make it possible for routers to make a preference for the cycleway. If a cyclist sees a cycleway he can use and fast traffic next to it it should not be hard to choose. It seems you want to add safety information to the OSM database. This will never work if it is up to every mapper to decide what is safe and what is not because we all have different perceptions of safety. Try to find objective criteria (such as maxspeed signs).--PeeWee32 7:20, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. "compellingly practical to do so for safety reasons" is some situations is clear, but in most cases it completely depends on personal opinion Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:09, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

bicycle=yes everywhere

Is there a really good idea to tag obvious tags everywhere? Adding bicycle=yes, toll=no, oneway=no to 98% of roads is rather a poor idea Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:38, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

• It would be better to properly discuss OSM tags for routing/Access-Restrictions Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:40, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The reason is quite simple:

• On roads without any cycleway, bicycle=yes is not necessary.
• On roads with a cyclepath,

• cycling on the carriageway is forbidden, if the cyclepath is obligatory for cyclists,
• cycling on the carriageway is allowed, if the cyclepath is not obligatory for cyclists.
• Some mappers are aware of this feature, others not.
• Therefore, it there is no bicycle=*-Tag aon a road with a cycleway, you are not sure if you may ride on the carriageway or not.--Ulamm (talk) 13:08, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Limiting this recommendation to road with cyclepaths is more reasonable Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

• Changing wiki pages without any consensus is not a very wise thing to do IMHO. Adding bicycle=yes to these type of roads dramatically conflicts with OSM tags for routing/Access-Restrictions This page is a reference for many mappers (not just bicycle related ) and can be used to justify removing the tag you are suggesting. If you really want mappers to add this my suggestion is: undo this in this wiki, and start a discussion on the tagging mailinglist. If there is enough support create your own proposal , have a vote, make a wiki page and if accepted change relevant wiki pages. PeeWee32 (talk) 05:44, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

• bicycle=yes isn't a new tag.
• All default values depend on conditions under which something is normal or even self evident. If a road has a cycleway, it is neither doubtless that you may cycle on the carriageway, nor that you must not.
• This way it is self evident that on such roads bicycle=yes is useful.--Ulamm (talk) 21:06, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Fact: you are suggesting to put a bicycle=no on roads adjacent to non compulsory cycleways ([EDIT] I meant bicycle=yes here. Sorry for confusion PeeWee32 (talk) 07:35, 25October 2014 (UTC)[/EDIT])

Fact : there is no wide consensus about this (yet?)

Fact : even though there is no consensus you’ve changed the wiki according to your view

Fact: up until now you refuse to react to my suggestions (in both this Talk page and in PM) on how you could get consensus.

Fact : I’ve never claimed that what you are suggesting is nonsense, all I am saying is that it is wise to get consensus prior to changing wiki.

Fact: many mappers spend their time to get consensus on both the use_cycleway and use_sidepath discussion. As far as I can see you’ve not taken part in that nor was there proposed to put a bicycle=no on roads adjacent to non- compulsory cycleways.

Fact: You’ve upset me and others with your changing wiki pages
PeeWee32 (talk) 05:30, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

You turn my entry to its opposite.

True is:

• Roads adjacent to compulsory cycleways require bicycle=use_sidepath, as there you have to cycle on the cycleway. (1st line of the table)
• Roads adjacent to non-compulsory cycleways require bicycle=yes, as there you are allowed to cycle on the carriageway ("road"). This is, what I've added in the 2nd line of the table.
  After Mateusz's revert, I have changed the style. Now the sentence does no more tell, "you must". Now it is an information to the mapper, that without bicycle=yes there is a lack of information for readers and evaluation programs.
• In the 3rd line of the table, I didn't change the text, but the photo. As the first two lines deal with carriageways used by motor vehicles, the illustration for the sign "bicycyles forbidden" preferably also has to show a carriageway used by motor vehicles (which means that the cycling ban is discriminating).

If somebody wants to introduce an innovation, he ought to ask for consense, in order to prevent the development of several non-compatible tagging systems. If something is the logical outcome of principles and reality of OSM, nobody can allow or forbid it. Entries must be well founded and logically derived, to avoid voluntarism and to convince people. Among thousands of mappers, two, three, or even ten people are almost as few as one. --Ulamm (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

You claim: "Roads adjacent to non-compulsory cycleways require bicycle=yes, as there you are allowed to cycle on the carriageway ("road")". I've stated several times that this claim conflicts with OSM tags for routing/Access-Restrictions . That is the reason I've asked you if you could give me a reference to a discussion or whatever that shows that your claim has consensus in the community. Up until now you have not been able to give me any and you have not reacted to my suggestion to get consensus. Wiki's are supposed to give mapper objective information that have some form of consensus. Now they find conflicting information which is a bad thing. Not getting any consensus also has the disadvantage that mappers might remove the bicycle=yes you so earerly want because the "access Wiki" states that this tag is not necessary. This could well lead to the next edit-war. On top of all this I find it a pity that a wiki page that was the result of many hours discussing now gets a part that is not discussed and is controversial. And Ulamm... I'm not worried about changing a photo in a wiki. That is not the issue. Adding unfunded claims worries me a lot more and adds to the sceptisism of people regarding wiki pages. Don't believe everything you read.PeeWee32 (talk) 16:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

There are no interferences with OSM tags for routing/Access-Restrictions, as those are valid only

• for roads (correctly "carriageways of roads") without cycletracks,
• for roads as a whole, whose really existing cycletracks have not yet been drawn or tagged in OSM,
• for roads in countries without compulsory roadside cycletracks.

If in a country all roadside cycletracks are compulsory, the carriageways of all roads with cycletracks require bicycle=use_sidepath

In countries, where some of the roadside cycletracks are compulsory and others are not, a default value for the carriageways of roads with cycletracks is impossible. There, you have three kinds of roads, where on the road or street as whole (not only carraigeway) cycling is allowed:

• without cycletrack: bicycle=yes on the carriageway
• with non-obligatory cycletrack: bicycle=yes on the carriageway + (Lübeck scheme) bicycle=yes on the cycletrack. See: Carl-Gauß-Straße Lübeck!
• with obligatory cycletrack: bicycle=use_sidepath on the carriageway (in the direction of the cycletrack) + (Lübeck scheme) bicycle=designated on the cycletrack. See: Holstentorplatz Lübeck!--Ulamm (talk) 16:03, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I see no use in any further discussion Ulamm. It seems you now have changed the access wiki as well and use this to justify changing this wiki. I hope that some day you will get in touch with the rest of the OSM community before you make any further changes. PeeWee32 (talk) 16:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Dear PeeWee32, please tell your answers on two questions:

• Don't you understand that the differences in the legal status (and technical qualities) of cycling facities ought to be mapped?
• Don't you understand that on facts that are documented by some mappers and are not documented by other mappers any mapping is in vain unless both (or possibly more) values of a parameter are positively noted in contrast to missing records?--Ulamm (talk) 22:14, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

The point I am trying to make is that I think wiki pages should contain information that has some sort of consensus in the OSM community. And it does not matter what I think. If there is consensus (and only then) it should be documented. Let's assume that you and I agree that a bicyle=yes should be placed on a road next to a non-compulsory cycleway. Should we then change all relevant wiki pages? I don't think so. We should get in touch with the OSM community and see what opinions are there. If that leads to consensus then I say... go ahead and change wiki pages. That's it. No more, no less. PeeWee32 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

As I've mentioned several times before, many mappers are not aware of the difference between compulsory and non-compulsory roadside cycleways. Therefore, the "missing" of bicycle=use_sidepath can mean that cycling on the road is allowed though there is a cycleway, but it also can mean that cycling on the road is forbidden, but the feature has not been regarded. To mention this problem needs no approval. Vice versa, not to mention this problem is an intolerable mistake.

Cycleways not drawn as a separate line, but only recorded by tags of the road-line, can be compulsory or non-compulsory as well. Therefore it would be nonsense to record the question of their compulsoriness in another way.--Ulamm (talk) 13:45, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

The problem of incompleteness is present not only in OSM, but in commercial maps. To add a redundant tag in the way does not solve this. Please try to reach consensus before editing whenever your changes are contested by multiple users. --Jgpacker (talk) 14:51, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

• Official and commercial editors have a redactional committee that provides a constant standard at least within one map, mostly within a series of maps.
• In OSM every mapper notes what he is interested in. Unless you write either "plus" or "minus" if both are possible, nobody knows, if you regarded the feature but found "minus" or if you forgot to regard it.
• Default values are only acceptable, if the other possibility is very unlikely. Example:
  • On a street in a city center you need not note that it is paved.
  • On a path in the wilderness you need not note that it is not unpaved.
  • On a way or a small street in the outskirts of a city that may be paved or unpaved, you always have to note whether it is paved or not. As long as there is no note, everybody has to suppose that the feature has been forgotten.
  • For the local OSM-community as a whole, it is less work, if the first mapper notes the feature unambigously, than if every few weeks another mapper looks there and notes nothing, considering the state a default value.
  • Much more destructive is an ambigous mapping for the normal only-user who only reads the rendered map or uses a routing program.

In countries with a differenced range of cycling facilities, it is the same thing with compulsoriness:

Type of the road or street	Cycling access	Default value	bicycle=* on the "road"
without cycletracks	cycling generally allowed on the carriageway ("road")	= yes	bicycle=no, if forbidden
with one or two cycletracks in a country, where none is compulsory	cycling generally allowed on the carriageway ("road")	= yes	bicycle=no, if untypically forbidden
with one or two cycletracks in a country, where all are compulsory	cycling here not allowed on the carriageway ("road")	= no	bicycle=use_sidepath
with a cycletrack in a country where some are compulsory, and some are not	cycling may be allowed (free choice for cyclists) or forbidden on the carriageway	default value impossible	bicycle=use_sidepath, if the cycletrack is compulsory bicycle=yes, if the cycletrack is non-compulsory

--Ulamm (talk) 18:12, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I think default values shouldn't be tagged. But the question is, what is a (reasonable) defalut value? oneway=no at normal roads or oneway=yes at motorways must not be tagged, because much more than 95% of this types have the defalut value. But what about oneway or in this case compulsory at cycleways? There are ratios from 50:50 to around 10:90. So I think bicycle=yes at roads with a facultative may be helpful, also for quality management tools. --MasiMaster (talk) 21:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I would disagree to some parts of Ulamm's table above this post:

1. First row: it may be possible to indicated this by cycleway=no on the road.
2. Second row: bicycle=use_sidepath should only used in countries with compulsory cycleways, so in case of "if untypically forbidden" is bicycle=no.
3. Third row: Do countries exist, which have only compulsory cycleways (and no facultative ones)?

--MasiMaster (talk) 21:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I beg your pardon for the my code mistake in the table – which now I have corrected.

• "Bicycle=yes" is the default value on roads without cycletracks.
• "Cyleway=no" is a default value on all roads. It should only be tagged in spacial cases:
  • where a short section of a road with cycleways has none.
  • if one road has no cyleway in a region, where most roads of the same class have.

Country specifications:

• In UK = GB, the use of all cycletracks is facultative.
• In Italy and Switzerland, all cycletracks are obligatory, still.--Ulamm (talk) 08:47, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

bicycle=use_sidepath only if the cycleway is a separate highway (like highway=cycleway)

Another question. The use_sidepath tag was meant for roads next to cycleways that are draws as a separate highway (for example: highway=cycleway). If you look at all the talk on both the use_cycleway and use_sidepath proposal you will see that. So why did you remove the "that is entered in OSM as a separate highway" from the wiki. I don't understand. PeeWee32 (talk) 14:32, 1 november 2014 (UTC)

If you read the texts, the usage only for separately drawn cycleways was mentioned in a discussion before the last but one voting (that has not yet been successful). From May to now it was not mentioned in the guideline. Therefore it has not to be considered a part of the consense.

Furthermore it would be an unneccessary complication to use two different tags for the same feature that cyclists mustn't go on the carriageway, because there is at least one compulsory roadside cycletrack.

Truly, the rendering of cycletracks only tagged but not drawn is still totally insufficient. But at least the key of VELOMAP promises to distinguish and show left cycletracks.

Even routers (I hope they are better than the renderers) have to decide whether to lead the cyclists on the right or the left side of the road.

This means, the introduction of a special tag for not separately drawn roadside cycletracks would not only afford a new suggestion and voting process. With the improvement of the evaluating programs that we ought to achieve, a relaunch would be necessary, perhaps within a few months.

Last not least, I don't understand, in which way the usage also for tagged-only cycletracks should interfere with the usage intended by you.--Ulamm (talk) 20:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Because you are the last person that changed the wiki and the sentence " that is entered in OSM as a separate highway," is still there so I guess we agree on this. It was something I had forgotten to put in the wiki when voting was finished. User Hubert pointed me towards this. I think this is important because other wise mappers might use the use_sidepath tag on roads without a separately drawn cycleway. Then we might end up with a combination like "highway=tertiary, cycleway=track, bicycle=use_sidepath". That was not the intention of the introduction of this tag. PeeWee32 (talk) 7:05, 2 november 2014 (UTC)

That's just, to which I don't agree, as it is not reasonable.

Logical view:

• Some mappers prefer to draw roadside cycletracks separately, others prefer to describe the same settings by additional tags of the roadline, a few (at least User:Osmonav) suggest redundant tagging, if the cycletrack is drawn separately (see Holstentorplatz, Lübeck).
• Any of those cycletracks may be compulsory or non-compulsory. Or it may be converted in the next years.
• The same variant of the same feature should always be described by the same value of the same parameter.

Type of cycletrack	Cycletrack separately drawn		Cycletrack only tagged on the road-line
	On the road-line	On the cycletrack line
compulsory one-way cycletracks on each side of the road	bicycle=use_sidepath	highway=cycleway oneway=yes (evt. + bicycle=designated)	bicycle=use_sidepath cycleway:both=track cycleway:both:oneway=yes
compulsory, bidirectional, nominally right side of the road	bicycle=use_sidepath	highway=cycleway (evt. + bicycle=designated)	bicycle=use_sidepath cycleway:right=track cycleway:right:oneway=no
facultative one-way cycletracks on each side of the road	bicycle=yes	highway=cycleway oneway=yes (evt. + bicycle=yes)	bicycle=yes cycleway:both=track cycleway:both:oneway=yes
facultative, bidirectional, nominally right side of the road	bicycle=yes	highway=cycleway (evt. + bicycle=yes)	bicycle=yes cycleway:right=track cycleway:right:oneway=no
one-way cycletracks on each side of the road, the nominally right one facultative, the nominally left one compulsory	bicycle:forward=yes bicycle:backward=use_sidepath	highway=cycleway oneway=yes (evt. + bicycle=yes)	bicycle:forward=yes bicycle:backward=use_sidepath cycleway:both=track cycleway:both:oneway=yes
		highway=cycleway oneway=yes (evt. + bicycle=designated)

|

The tags in brackets refer to the Lübeck scheme.--Ulamm (talk) 11:02, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hallo, PeeWee32 hat mich auf die Diskussion hier hingewiesen. Ich muss mich hier leider auf die Seite von PeeWee32 stellen. Deine rechte Seite der Tabelle ergibt überhaupt keinen Sinn. bicycle=use_sidepath ist nicht dazu da benutzungspflichtige Radwege zu kennzeichenen - welches wenn dann durch cycleway:bicycle=use_sidepath dargestellt werden würde - oder von nicht benutzungspflichtigen Radwegen zu unterscheiden, sondern um eine Alternative zu bicycle=no anzubieten, da man unterbestimmten Umständen ja auf der Straße fahren dürfte, bicycle=no aber ein generelles Verbot bedeuten würde, welches hier falsch ist.

Eine vernünftige Möglichkeit Radwege mitttels bicycle=* als benutzungspflichtig zu kennzeichen, gibt es im Moment einfach nicht. Ich nutze als Alternative die Kombination aus bicycle=official/designated + traffic_sign=DE:237/DE:240/DE:237.

Bezüglich der Spezifizierung von use_sidepath bei der Verwendung separt eingetragener Wege, schau dir doch einmal nur einmal die ganzen Beispiele auf der bicycle=use_sidepath-Seite an. Außerdem heißt es dort "road has a parallel compulsory cycleway". Das ist doch schon der Hinweis darauf, dass der Weg extra eigezeichnet wird. Die Änderung "that is entered in OSM as a separate highway," muss aber leider anscheinend mit hinzu, um das deutlicher auszudrücken. (@PeeWee32: Sorry for writing in German, I hope thats OK.)--Hubert87 (talk) 13:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Danke Hubert. PeeWee32 (talk) 14:11, 2 november 2014 (UTC)

You both are wrong.

The sentence "road has a parallel compulsory cycleway" decribes the reality.

This reality can be mapped by drawing that cycleway, separately, or by recording it by additional tags on the road-line.

As I've written before, there is no logical reason to reserve the usage on combinations of separately drawn carriageways and cycleways.

On the right column of my table: What of the tags do you consider illogical or ambigous?

The problem of understanding is as follows:

• In the visible layout of the street and our subjective perception, compulsoriness is a quality of the cycleway.
• Legally, it is a question of the organization of the street as a whole. (A cycleway not attached to a road can be reserved for cycling, but it can't be compulsory.)
• For routing programs, compulsoriness of a roadside cycleway is a quality of the carriageway it is attached to.
• This way, using bicycle=use_sidepath is tagging for the router, in its best sense.
  • The router simply has to search for the next alternative.
  • The renderer, if it is able to show compulsory cycletracks in contrast to facultative ones, has to decide, which is the compulsory cycletrack, the road-line tag refers to. This decision is more complicated with separately drawn cycletracks than with tagged-only ones.
    • The street-relations recommended are not a good aid. They are not really approved and many mappers use them to simplify adresses (At the single house they only tag the number, but make it a member of a relation containing all houses in that street) rather than to bundle its traffic elements.
    • Perhaps every roadside cycletrack ought to be tagged highway=cycleway + cycleway=sidepath, similar to the tagging of separately drawn sidewalks (highway=footway + footway=sidewalk), which is recommended for the same reason. The tag cycleway=sidepath this way has to be used for compulsory as well as non-compulsory roadside cycletracks. It has one more advantage: If you tell your router you want to avoid main roads, it won't send you on the cycletracks of primary and secondary roads, perhaps not even tertiary roads.--Ulamm (talk) 14:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Did it ever come to your mind, that you could be the one who's wrong this time? Or can you link to any thread were your opinion is second.

"parallel" is THE keyword here. If it just said "road has a compulsory cycleway", your interpretation would be acceptable. Just read the discussionpage and the vote-comments of the proposals (use_sideway/use_sidepath) and you would see, that "tagging for the router, in its best sense." has been criticized there, too. However, it has been deem usefull by a majority and the proposal has been accepted.

cycleway=sidepath => German-Forum --Hubert87 (talk) 16:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I do not criticize tagging for the router, nor tagging for the renderer. Both are the best we can do as long we don't abuse tags.

But it is no merit to limit the use of the first tag describing compulsoriness unquestionedly, without any logical reason.

In general, I prefer to draw all cycletracks on main roads as own waylines.

As soon as a universal tool to describe compulsoriness will be established, the use of bicycle=use_sidepath may be reduced to separately drawn cycleways.

I think, together with a second approach to establish Proposed_features/cycleway=soft_lane, perhaps in March 2015, a set of appropriate tools to describe all kinds of cyling facilities with one tag for each one should be established. This time, the period of discussion was too short. Some more people have to have understood that each kind of cycling facilities is worth to be identified correctly and with international compatibility in OSM.--Ulamm (talk) 18:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I think your going at it the wrong way. bicycle=use_sidepath was set up and intended for the "reduced" meaning. What your doing right now is expanding it by changing the bicycle=use_sidepath wiki page and other wikipages, without prior discussion. If you think we need a better tag for compulsory cycle way use, feel free to introduce a proposal for it. --Hubert87 (talk) 19:54, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I think, you have misunderstood me:

• With "a set of appropriate tools" I don't mean a lasting extension of bicycle=use_sidepath, but a number of new tags simlar to cycleway=soft_lane.
• I would have preferred, the recent voting would have begun mid November ("This time, the period of discussion was too short").
• A voting date "perhaps in March 2015" gives space for four or five months of discussion with as many discutants as possible.
• Several statements of the last weeks have given the impression that some contributors have just (or not even) begun to deal with the specifications of cycling facilities.--Ulamm (talk) 20:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I think we have a case of misunderstanding here. If somebody want to tag that a road has a cycleway, (even if it is compulsory/facultative/separate track/cycle_lane) you can add a cycleway:both=track to the way of the road, e.g. to the highway=secondary. Or you can draw a new line and add a highway=cycleway to it. In both cases, the bicycle=use_sidepath can be added to the road way. The tag does not belongs to the cycleway, also in the first case. To describe the bicycle=*-tag in the first case you need sub-keys: cycleway:both:bicycle=yes/designated/official.

The last column in Ulamm's table shows if a cycleway is tagged on the way of the road (the line in the editor)

OK, I know a cycle track (on a sidewalk or separated by a small strip gras) should (not must) be tagged as a own line and a cycle lane on the road with sub-keys on the way of the road. We have both, compuslory and non-compulsory cycle-lanes, so we need to distinguish it by bicycle=use_sidepath/bicycle=yes on the road. This tags belongs only to the road, e.g. highway=secondary. The cycle-lane has not the same tag and is untagged, unless a cycleway:bicycle=* is tagged. --MasiMaster (talk) 22:31, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Though by road design, the obligation to use a cycleway looks like a property of the cycleway, logically it is a property of the carriageway. Therefore it makes sense always to tag it to the road-line.

A good example is a design you often find in large villages: On the left there is an obligatory mixed cycle-and-foot-way (sign 240 ) and, on the right, cycling is allowed on the sidewalk (sign 239 + sign 1022-10 ). You have to ride either on the mixed cycleway on the left or on the sidewalk on the right.

If on the left there were a simple sidewalk or sidewalk/cycling allowed in both directions, you were allowed to ride on the "road" (carriageway).

Unfortunately,the tags frequently used on cycleways according to the Lübeck scheme are not unequivocal:

• bicycle=designated was introduced in 2007/2008 in the intention to record all cyleways with the combination of highway=path + bicycle=designated instead of highway=cycleway. Therefore still some mappers use this tag for non-obligatory cyclways, too.
• bicycle=official was introduced by a German mapper in order to describe obligatory cyleways, but uses a wrong term. Though till end 2013 all non-obligatory cyleways had no panel signs, they are official. They mustn't be used for anything but cycling, and the autorities are obliged to keep them usable (Verkehrssicherungspflicht). Otherwise they have to close them. Some such cyeways have been converted into parking lanes.--Ulamm (talk) 08:19, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Verification/quality control

The wiki mentions explicitly not to combine bicycle=use_sidepath in combination with cycleway=track, that is indeed still a (small) problem, see https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/bicycle=use_sidepath#combinations and filter on cycleway.

To get a list of these problems, use Overpass with a query like:

[out:xml][timeout:90][bbox:{{bbox}}];
(
  way["bicycle"="use_sidepath"]["cycleway:left"]["cycleway:left"!="no"]["cycleway:left"!="separate"];
);
(._;>;);
out meta;

The good thing about bicycle=use_sidepath instead of bicycle=no is that it should be possible to automatically check if the tag is appropriate. Just check the surroundings of the way to see if there is a cyclepath.

Two questions:

1. What would be a valid distance to check for a cycle path?
2. Anybody knows if there is already a tool checking this?

Emvee (talk) 07:25, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Note that such simple check for nearby ways will find also cycleways crossing road. Also seperate -> separate Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:10, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Corrected separate, thanks.

Indeed, crossing cyclepath will also show up if you just search the surroundings, that means a false positive which is not too bad to start of with I think. 14:32, 6 October 2019 (UTC)