So I imagine this is something of an edge case, but I think it brings up a wider question regarding borders in cycle.travel. I'm planning a ride from Dubrovnik up the Čiro trail in Bosnia and back through a couple of the Croatian islands. Nothing necessarily memorable here, until it comes to the return border from Bosnia back to Croatia. Because the default cycle.travel map doesn't seem to include national borders I didn't notice it, but without the insertion of point 18, from Studenci, Bosnia to Ploče, Croatia cycle.travel tried to take me across a dirt path over a mountainous border between Bosnia and Croatia. I don't know how open map data works, but if there's any way for you to add some sort of intelligent check when crossing between two sovereign states about whether it is a legal crossing/official border crossing or the states in question have open borders, that'd be super helpful. I'm lucky I spotted it before I went to ride because otherwise I would have been trying to enter the EU (and Schengen) over a dirt track over a mountain range from Bosnia...
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Citadella, while I agree that something like this would be useful, I'd imagine that the demand for it is actually quite small. I'm a big fan of the simplicity of CT and appreciate the simple quality of the routes it suggests (in comparison to many of the others) and anything that adds complexity is, for me, something to be approached cautiously. There is also the idea that a planner like CT that does 'too much' can lead to users that are complacent and not used to figuring things out for themselves. For example, when I cross a border I would not depend on what my route planner suggested - I would research it myself. There are too many possible variables from opening hours, facilities available, local rules (for example if foot/pedal travellers are permitted etc.)
While the CT map doesn't emphasise borders, other maps are available that do. For example, below is a screengrab of the general area of your example but on the Open Street Map option that clearly shows the border.
Even at maximum zoom the border is clear
For those of us who live in border areas a quick 'flip' of the map display is useful. After that, it's up to us.
I think a more realistic request would be, why not show the border at nearer zoom levels, on the default CT map?
Showing the border at higher zoom levels is definitely a good idea and in fact c.t does it for some borders – so I will investigate why it’s not doing so for these!
The question of how it should affect the routing is a tricky one. In North America, c.t puts quite a heavy penalty on border crossings, because you can potentially be delayed there for a long time – so it shouldn’t suggest nipping back and forth across (say) the US/Mexico border just to choose some quieter roads.
The EU is the other end of the scale – most of the time, all a border means is that the signs change a bit.
So that leaves the question of what to do with these ‘informal’ border crossings into/out of non-EU countries. They’re not marked in OpenStreetMap in any particular way, which complicates the practical task of identifying them (but it’s not impossible). Maybe c.t should try to avoid routing along tracks that cross these borders – but will that always hold true? I’ll give it some thought but would welcome any first-hand experience!
Perhaps if you weight borders differently you could weight specific borders that are known to be high-wait-times? In this case the border *wasn't* a border, but instead just a path over a mountain. But if you weight intra-EU borders as no different from a domestic road perhaps you could weight the outside edges of Schengen borders as North America level? Because I don't know *much* about border politics down there, but I'm pretty sure the outside border of Schengen has a special duty of care.
On the other hand, though, just making national borders more visible at higher zoom levels could be quite helpful as well...