cycleway=track Vs. highway=cycleway

Thank you for reminding me to remove cycleway=track from my locale.

Given the description of the reasons for it to be mapped, I've never really seen the point of it. How parallel & how near to the road does it have to be? IMO it's far too subjective. If there's a grass verge etc then it's a separately entity and requires a primary tag.

As has already been said, both are acceptable. My personal preference is to map cycleways as separate ways when they have a physical barrier, because it makes it more clear to map users that the route is separated from the road used by motor vehicles.

With physical separation, you are allowed to do either, as in highway=footway + footway=sidewalk vs highway= + sidewalk=. On this topic, some are using cycleway:*=separate to replace the cycleway:*=track once the highway=cycleway= has been drawn, as a counterpart to sidewalk:*=separate.

If you choose cycleway:*=track for now, it is helpful to add cycleway:*:oneway=no.