Hello, apologies for the burst of questions. Last one.
When mapping routes with all vehicle prohibitions (including bicycles), I have often added bicycle=dismount as suggested by http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_the_United_Kingdom#Vehicular_type_restrictions . I've also used it where a very short footway (without restrictive barriers) allows a significant shortcut for cyclists. However, I've noticed that bicycle=dismount means gets rendered as a cycleway on cycle.travel . Am I better off just tagging bicycle=no and trusting that cycle routers such as cycle.travel will be clever enough to direct cyclists to walk their bikes along pedestrian paths where there is a significant time saving?
Comments
The routing does now understand bicycle=dismount and other tags which mean the cyclist has to push – so by all means do use the tag. If it’s a useful shortcut then cycle.travel will route that way even if you have to push, though it does also apply a little penalty to hopping on and off your bike.
As yet the map style hasn’t caught up with the routing, but it’s on the (quite long) to-do list!
Hi Richard, thanks for the reply. I'll continue to use it for the no vehicles areas. Is there any benefit to tagging short footpath links or barriers bicycle=dismount as opposed to bicycle=no or (highway=footway with no bicycle tag) or are they treated the same way for routing purposes?
At present bicycle=no is treated as exactly that – no bicycles. So cycle.travel won’t route over any such way. If there isn’t a bicycle tag, or it’s bicycle=dismount, then it’ll be treated as a way where you can push the bike.
Okay, thanks. Final question ;) - How does cycle.travel respond to barriers tagged bicycle=no ? According to the wiki this just means a barrier you can't ride through without dismounting (which obviously applies to quite a few barriers on UK cycle paths). Are these ignored or treated as dismounting points or does it mean that the way with the barrier tagged bicycle=no won't be used in routing?
Anything tagged barrier=fence or barrier=wall will be blocked from routing. But all other barriers are treated as routable. Using bicycle=no to mean ‘dismount here’ seems curious but I’ve long since given up expecting sense from the OSM wiki!
Thanks for the reply Richard. I'm glad I'm not alone in that!