cycle lanes and shared lanes are too similar (blue dashes)

[pdurbin]

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Hi! CyclOSM seems great! I've mostly used Google Maps but I'm exploring OSM a bit because its data is used in a new bike stress map in Boston, where I live.

Here in Boston it's fairly common to have a bike lane on one side of the street but not the other. Below is an example. The bike lane is on the right (east) side of the street. The left (west) side of the street has nothing. On CyclOSM it's marked as "shared lane" but really there's nothing. You're fighting with cars. It's terrible. However on CyclOSM the difference is pretty subtle. Both are marked with blue dashes. Here's a screenshot.

Here's how it looks in real life (from Google Street View). Hopefully it's clear when I say that the northbound direction is much, much better for bike than the southbound way!

Could a different color be used perhaps? Instead of having blue dashes for both?

By the way, I love that this data showing which side of the street has the bike lane is in OSM. It's not in Google Maps. Thanks!

[Phyks]

Hi,

This is a limitation of OSM tags and it would be difficult to get a better render here. If I understand your picture correctly, leftest lane is parking lane, then the shared lane with cars, then lane and bike lane in the other direction?

The rule in CyclOSM is that everything bike-related is in blue. Dash to solid line is in increasing order of quality.

Shared lane should already be in slightly lighter blue + wider dashes. Not sure how to improve this.

Also, for reference, other implementations of shared lanes across the globe are in https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag%3Acycleway%3Dshared_lane&uselang=fr.

[pdurbin]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! Yes, you understand the picture well.

Perhaps the problem is in the data. The southbound lane, the one next to the parked cars, is shown as "shared lane" but it's no different than any regular street. If there are some sharrows painted on the street (I'm not sure), cars ignore them and it's a pretty terrible and dare I say dangerous street to bike down. I'm talking to a friend who's active it editing OSM data. Maybe we can fix the data.

It's basically the difference between night and day, the northbound and southbound lanes. It would be wonderful if CyclOSM could somehow reflect this difference beyond wider dashes in the same color. Maybe the dashes could be spaced even more with the boxes made smaller or rounded. Maybe the difference in the shade of blue could be increased as well. I wouldn't want my kids to get confused and plan to bike down one of these dangerous roads.

By the way, the examples of shared lanes in the wiki you linked are much more bike friendly (screenshot below)! In the Netherlands it looks like a separate bike lane! I'd be so happy for that! And in Toronto the street is much wider, with room for cars to pass bikes. Here in Boston the lanes are narrow and biking is dangerous.

[Phyks]

I'm talking to a friend who's active it editing OSM data. Maybe we can fix the data.

I would have tagged it this way as well, as it indeed seems to be sharrows in your Street view picture. The problem here is the transit notion which is not taken into account and cannot be easily mapped onto OSM tags. On paper, this is a low speed street with sharrows, there is not much infra but this should be considered bikable (it would be a sane default in many other countries).

By the way, the examples of shared lanes in the wiki you linked are much more bike friendly (screenshot below)!

In the Netherlands, this is an infra with two cycle lanes on each side but not enough space in the middle for cars to cross each other. Cars would use the bike lanes as overflow to pass.

In Toronto, this would be regular sharrows on the side of the lane I think, but much larger lane and seemingly little car traffic (from the picture).

Maybe the dashes could be spaced even more with the boxes made smaller or rounded. Maybe the difference in the shade of blue could be increased as well. I wouldn't want my kids to get confused and plan to bike down one of these dangerous roads.

Feel free to suggest edits, happy to take a PR on this. Colors are defined here (for the pure cycle amenities) and here for cycle mixed with something else. And the dasharray definition should be this one (and following similar blocks in this file, across all zoom levels and road types).

[pdurbin]

I would have tagged it this way as well, as it indeed seems to be sharrows in your Street view picture.

Ok, I take this to mean that I probably shouldn't try to change the data. Yes, there are sharrows. However, drivers around here (in Massachusetts and surrounding states we call them "massholes") ignore the sharrows. They honk, they tailgate, they pass right next to you, almost touching you. But let's say the data is fine. Sure. It's technically accurate, and makes sense in other countries. 😄

In the Netherlands, this is an infra with two cycle lanes on each side but not enough space in the middle for cars to cross each other. Cars would use the bike lanes as overflow to pass.

I had to read this a few times and look at the picture again, which I'll post below. From my perspective, it doesn't make much sense. This would never happen in the US. From left to right, you're saying there is:

parking	bike lane	car lane*	bike lane	parking

* The car lane allows travel in both directions despite not having a yellow line dividing the road. This is never seen in the US.

If this is true it reflects so much care for people biking it's hard to believe!

happy to take a PR on this. Colors are defined here

Thanks, I'm looking at your Docker quickstart but I can't promise anything. 😅

[Phyks]

• The car lane allows travel in both directions despite not having a yellow line dividing the road. This is never seen in the US.

That's true, cars do not have enough space to cross in the shared middle car lane. They would drive on the car lane (when no cars are coming in the opposite direction) and would use the bicycle lanes as buffer space for crossing (if no bikes are using them, they have the priority). This image shows it

[pdurbin]

@Phyks thanks, absolutely mind-blowing. I need to try biking in Europe!

Again, a new "stress map" in Boston was my inspiration to dig into this topic. I just opened this related issue, if you're interested:

• https://github.com/BostonCyclistsUnion/Website/issues/22