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There's a particular trail on OSM, but it's not suggested in routing instructions when selecting cycling. I've cycled the trail myself, and confirmed on the trail website that it's multi-use, which includes cycling.

How do I submit this change to OSM?

Edit: I'm brand new to the forum, so I'm making probably making some assumptions without realizing. The reason I think this trail (linked below) isn't bicycle routable is because OSRM isn't treating is at such. Thanks in advance for any insights!

Edit2: Now a link to the entire trail, not just a section.

Cataraqui Trail, Ontario, Canada: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/7321765

Edit3: Accepted SomeoneElse's answer. I haven't tested it yeat, but it'll be a while before I can and their answer seems to fit.

asked 06 Apr '19, 00:44

Diedrich%20Emm's gravatar image

Diedrich Emm
26114
accept rate: 0%

edited 08 Apr '19, 20:31

1

Can you link to the trail here?

(06 Apr '19, 00:47) SomeoneElse ♦

OSM isn't necessarily wrong here - just not detailed enough. "bicycle=yes" is something that I'd expect to be true for both paths that you can cycle on and residential roads, so setting that (while surely correct) doesn't necessarily say "choose the old railway track over the residential road". Looking at https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/504276641 , there's almost nothing there to indicate what sort of path it is. Are there foot-high boulders that you need to lift your bike over? What sort of surface is it?

Different cycle routers offer different sorts of routes. For what it sounds like you are looking for, cycle.travel might be a better option, as by default it does seem to route via the old railway track rather than the more direct residential road (I believe that it uses the fact that an OSM way is part of a cycle route as part of its routing calculation).

permanent link

answered 06 Apr '19, 15:07

SomeoneElse's gravatar image

SomeoneElse ♦
36.9k71370866
accept rate: 16%

edited 07 Apr '19, 15:09

2

You're right about that. The next time I ride the trail I'll collect at least some surface info about it and add that to OSM.

It's reportedly about 60% gravel, so there hopefully won't be too many minute variations to keep straight.

(07 Apr '19, 15:02) Diedrich Emm

It seems that in some places along this trail, OSRM prefers to route via highway=residential ways rather than via the highway=path ways that make up most of the trail. But I was able to get it to route over the =path segments when I forced it (by carefully adjusting the start and end.)

Probably the individual ways that make up this relation need to be tagged with bicycle=yes (or bicycle=designated, if that section is specifically signed for bicycle use.) That will adjust the weight that OSRM gives these segments when calculating bicycle routes.

Note that it may take a while for OSRM to recalculate the bicycle routing after these changes are made.

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answered 06 Apr '19, 02:42

jmapb's gravatar image

jmapb
3.4k73361
accept rate: 22%

Thanks for the suggestion! I went over the length of the trail, but it seems that every section was already tagged bicycle=yes.

I did see a bunch of flags noting that the path crosses various streams without any indication of a bridge or tunnel. Would that affect OSRM?

(06 Apr '19, 13:52) Diedrich Emm
1

Some sections may already be tagged with bicycle=yes, but none of the ones I checked were. (I checked the first 20 or so from those listed at https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/7321765 ).

Regarding your second question -- I don't know. My best guess is that these stream crossings would not affect the routing.

(06 Apr '19, 15:15) jmapb
1

Hmm, OK I'm confused. When I open the trail in the ID editor, everything I could click on showed bicycle=yes. And yet when I see the route is regular OSM, I absolutely don't see those tags, just as you said. Am I missing something about how the editor works?

Edit: I see now. It looks like a very facepalm situation. I was looking at greyed out bicycle=yes tags... I'll add the tags when I have a chance and see if that does the trick.

(07 Apr '19, 14:58) Diedrich Emm
1

In iD, there's an "Allowed Access" section that confusingly displays "Bicycle Yes" in grey. I think that's just a suggested default - if you actually supply the value, "yes" appears in black. To see what tags are actually present look down to the "All tags" section.

iD has a balancing act to perform - it needs to be easy to use for beginners but also needs to allow people to add quite detailed tagging (such as you'd need if you were to decide whether to use this route with your family on road bikes, or didn't mind a bit of gravel, or even boulders)

(07 Apr '19, 15:07) SomeoneElse ♦

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question asked: 06 Apr '19, 00:44

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last updated: 08 Apr '19, 20:31

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum