Hmmm… @SimonPoole , and also @starsep , @GreekMountains and possibly others. I’m not sure if the question of this thread was fully understood.
Many countries will have one or two signs similar to those:
indicating a designated area for both pedestrians and cyclists; where they both can move and intermingle, and there is no segregation between them (tagged foot=designated + bicycle=designated + segregated=no in OSM)
and/or
indicating a designated area for both pedestrians and cyclists; where each has their own designated “lane”, i.e. they are segregated (either by painted line, or something more substantial like different surfaces, kerb etc.) (tagged foot=designated + bicycle=designated + segregated=yes in OSM)
This question is NOT about those two signs (or if there is only one etc). It is about whether third type of sign exists (actually combination of two signs), which looks like this in Germany:
which is basically (as I understand it) some category between“Only pedestrians allowed” and “Bicycles and pedestrians share the same surface, without any segregation”
this is something that is regulated on the national level in Germany, children must cycle on the sidewalk up to age 7 and from 8 to 10 they can choose, while from age 10 they must ride on the street. An adult may accompany the child under 8 on the footway, but must be extra careful. We don’t tag this because there are no location specific indications for it, it is the general legal situation.
Admittedly if every county or municipality makes their own rules it will get complex.
it actually means footway, while bicycles can be the “guest”, they have to be very careful (i.e. if they crash into a pedestrian it will be more likely their fault) and must drive only at walking speed (there is some natural discrepancy between reality and this prescription).
Well, those details you specify might be country-dependent. I have no idea about Italy, but in Croatia, law does not specify such rules that you mention at all (in fact, I think in Germany it is what that THIRD sign means - that bicycle is a “guest” as opposed to “equal”, but I’m not German and could be wrong).
For example, over here in Croatia you can cycle at any speed you want, and no preference is given to either category (pedestrian or cyclist). It just means that pedestrians have as much right to be there as cyclists.
However, over here all vehicles at all times (bicycles included) must always (regardless of the surface of movent) “appropriately adjust their speed to surrounding conditions”. Which is a catch-all which make any vehicle driver be “default suspect” unless proven otherwise. Even if it was cyclist on on bicycle-only cycleway which hit a pedestrian who should’ve not been there.
Anyway, I think that my quote at the top is much less specific and (I think) is correct in all countries. Whether some country might have some additional rules on top of that, it is on them to define.
yes, sorry if I wasn’t clear, it was referring to the German situation. I am not sure about Italy, it could in theory be similar as in Germany from the written law, in practise bicycles are mostly “unregulated” and disregarded by the traffic officers, so it is not so important. There is a significant difference that bicycles are allowed by default in Italian pedestrian areas, but this does not include footways.
Each edition of the MUTCD standard progressively changes a few more signs to Title Case. At this rate, it’ll be the age of flying cars before we match the UK’s preference for Sentence case.
According to American Legal Publishing, one of three major municipal code publishers, there are 4,773 municipal ordinances related to bicycles on sidewalks across the United States.[1] Many other basic traffic laws are routinely defined at the municipal level. Off the top of my head: default speed limits, as well as restrictions on U-turning, turning right on red, parking on the street, using engine brakes, or cruising.
As @ezekielf points out, many municipalities limit these regulations to parts of town that have no clear definition. (Some statewide traffic laws can similarly defy a precise definition.) Additionally, park operators and private property owners can and often do set their own rules on the premises.
The upshot is that any system of defaults based on boundary relations or wiki pages would probably be impractical in the U.S. If some regulation matters enough and we can figure out where it applies, most mappers have preferred to tag it on each individual way. But for something as lightly regulated as bicycle usage, few mappers have bothered so far.
Set “Select document types to include” to “Codes Only” and “These words near each other” to bicycle sidewalk, and enable “Find alternate word forms (stemming)”. ↩︎
In Scotland, cycling is generally allowed on footways, unless it’s a pavement (sidewalk in OSM speak). No sign required. From what I’ve seen there’s usually only a sign when cycling is allowed on the pavement (the shared use sign) or when cycling is prohibited on a footway that isn’t a pavement.
bicycle=yes is often added to highway=footways (that are not pavements) so that routers understand this and know that they can take cyclists along the footway.
So yes, there is a distinction between “designated for cyclists and pedestrians” (e.g. the shared use pavement) and “designated for pedestrians, but cyclists are allowed” (most footpaths in the country). But those footpaths would generally not have foot=designated, they would just have highway=footway
Which StreetComplete quest is this in response to?
In England & Wales there is no difference.* StreetComplete shouldn’t offer up this distinction here.
* Ok, there are two slight exceptions because it’s never that simple, but they don’t affect the general point IMO. First, where a landowner has permitted cycling even though there’s no public right of way for bikes, they are at liberty to advertise a path as “designated for pedestrians but cyclists are allowed”. You could possibly make a case that this is the situation on canal towpaths. However, this is better tagged as bicycle=permissive anyway. Second, you could potentially interpret the public bridleway legislation from 1968 this way, but it’s not really a helpful distinction and the nuances of bridleway access are better captured by using designation=public_bridleway.
I’d agree with that; I have never seen that form of “exception” signage in England and Wales. However:
Signage to that effect certainly does occur. Towpaths were already mentioned, but aside from the general point there are definitely places where explicit “cyclists should give way to pedestrians” signs exist. The stretch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal where the nice breweries are has some from memory, and I think there are non-towpath examples exist too.
Since the latest edition of the Highway Code includes this in Rule H2, I think that can be taken as implicit for any shared path in the UK. The signs may be useful reminders, but don’t have any real significance.
“Cyclists should give way to pedestrians on shared use cycle tracks and to horse riders on bridleways.”
Seen many a shared ‘cyclopedonale’, some with a subsign in busy areas like along the beach to moderate speed or a hard sign saying maxspeed 10. The below i’d not noticed before, meaning reading, saying to moderate speed, if necessary to dismount, AND quote of the penal codes (invoked if something happens)
An atypical (more verbose than normal) example is this one. Most are normally in “Canal and River Trust blue” and say “Pedestrians have priority”. I don’t have a photo, unfortunately.
Some cyclists in the UK have a reputation for “not entirely following the letter of the highway code”.
well, ish - but i the case of canal towpaths one “landowner” looks after most of it, so signage is somewhat uniform. With other cycle routes across private land, the signage is usually from Sustrans, so again, somewhat uniform.
I can think of at least one public road location where “cyclists should give way to pedestrians on the same piece of tarmac” might be explicitly signed - I’ll have to see if I can get a photo of that.
In England and Wales, that would refer to the legal right of access rather than how cyclists should behave once they’re there. It’s entirely possible to envisage a non-segregated foot and cycle path where (notwithstanding the highway code, as noted above) each has just as much right as the other to be there, but the foot access is legally enshrined via a designation=public_footpath and cycle access is just “allowed by the landowner” (which might be the local authority) - permissive in OSM speak.
It’s also possible to envisage the same legal situation with signage to say that cyclists just give way to pedestrians.
