Hi,
I am using your fantastic site to navigate a 10 day loop of the Netherlands. I've become aware that there are cycle lane closures at either end of the Afsluitdijk crossing whereby a free shuttle bus is currently in operation for hikers and cyclists. Is there a feature to highlight road closures? Having just ridden coast to coast in a day (Barrow in Furness to Flamborough), trying to anticipate road closures and resurfacing is difficult. Many, many thanks for your fantastic site, Stephen
Comments
Amanda, road closures can represent a problem. First of all, they have to be recorded in OpenStreetMap (OSM), where CT draws it's data. Then that data has to be 'absorbed' into CT. I understand that CT updates approximately monthly for Europe (it may be less often in other parts).
The afsluitdijk has been under repair for (I think) several years at this stage and this has been recorded in CT.
Using the mobile website, we can see under the route summary (for a quick route plotted across the dyke):
This clearly shows limited hours. Perhaps not enough info on its own, but enough to encourage us to investigate further. theafsluitdijk.com/?_ga=2.196903276.1540609924.1782579850-1734121095.1782579849
I wouldn't expect a bike planner to be able to have up to date information for short term road closures. They're part of the fun!
However, similar issues can crop up with ferries and, where appropriate, public spaces that may have opening times (think parks). I once arrived at a ferry crossing in NL to discover that the next ferry was in 3 ...... months! Absolutely my own fault, not CTs.
I think this particular case is a mapping error in OpenStreetMap – the relevant part of the Afsluitdijk is shown as both ‘road under construction’ and ‘cycle route’ – and that’s confusing cycle.travel’s processing. The cycle route in OSM really needs to be moved off the under-construction cycleway and onto the shuttle bus service.