I have re-read your comments as well as the note you left about the MUP as it approaches Weston at Finch. I had no idea that there would be a tunnel underneath the rail crossing. Cool!

As for the MPU, it seems likely that the MPU hasn't changed significantly since last year -- there was some construction and the path was often protected from traffic via plastic construction barriers, just as you describe.

What changes do you propose? We could downgrade some sections from MPU to footpath (i.e. set "highway=footway" rather than the current "highway=cycleway"). Disabling or deleting the segments seems excessive given that they are actually used by cyclists and pedestrians, as evidenced by the Strava global heatmap.

See also https://old.reddit.com/r/torontobiking/comments/1bt2u9k/the_finch_gap_is_now_navigable_finally_a_safe/

No worries! Updating the map to reflect current construction and conditions is fine. I personally haven't risen that route in months. Back when I made that update it was a perfectly safe route, even though the separation from traffic was achieved through temporary means. Looking at the Strava global heatmap, it appears like this bike track is still a busy route, which suggests that many people are finding it transitable. You may find the "construction" tag useful as a way to temporarily disable segments of the path, if you want.

Thank you, Jarek. This makes a lot of sense.

I don't get it. I was just trying to follow the convention here: we don't typically tag roads in Ontario/Toronto with foot=yes tags as it was done in changeset/34227717. It is not safe or expected for pedestrians to walk on roads.

If we want to tag foot=use_sidepath on this road because there is a sidewalk, how is any other road any different? The sidewalk is already mapped separately, so any routing apps can easily direct pedestrians to follow the sidewalk.

All that said, I don't see any reason to tag this particular road as foot=no either, since, again, this isn't different from any other minor road where pedestrians are not supposed to be walking along. There's quite a bit of car traffic down this road, to boot.

Great. I have eliminated the redundancy and made some tweaks to the path connectivity so that routing algorithms will see a contiguous cycling network where it is.

See changeset/147627123 for details.

Pathing them separately is fine. Do we agree that the cycleway=lane tags from the street are now obsolete and need to be removed?

This changeset added separate cycle tracks around Cherry Street but didn't remove the pre-existing (unprotected) bicycle lanes associated with it. I haven't been in the area recently; would it make more sense to change the cycleway tags in Cherry St. to indicate there are now cycle tracks rather than unprotected lanes? E.g. would it be better to remove the separate bicycle tracks and instead modify Cherry St. to have cycleway=track?

Thank you! I have no idea how the change to oneway=yes happened -- didn't mean to! I agree that it is not one-way.

Thank you, Nate. I made these and other small changes to Allen Rd based on what we know from official documentation and street-level photos.

Oh, thank you, Nate! /user/andrewpmk is an even busier guy than you -- I feel bad bothering him.

But since you are here and you also have a ton of experience in OSM. How do you suggest we should proceed? My newbie instinct is that the current bicycle=no tag between Sheppard and Transit Rd. is likely stale and should be removed to reflect the current status.

Hi Nate! Can you elaborate on why Allen Rd was tagged as bicycle=no south of Sheppard? My understanding is that it is a secondary road (i.e. not an expressway) until its intersection with Traffic Rd further south, which means that cycling is legally allowed, and that's what OSM means by "bicycle=no".

User @dvandersluis and I are having a conversation about whether bicycle=no is appropriate in this section of the Allen Rd or not, so your input would be appreciated.

Cheers!

David

Cheers!

David

You were not kidding about the signals being confusing. Why are they on the wrong side of the road? And why are there "no pedestrians allowed" signs right next to what looks like a sidewalk?

I could understand having no-bikes signs at Allen @ Sheppard if Allen transformed inevitably into an expressway without the possibility of a detour, but there is indeed a detour at Transit Rd to avoid entering the expressway. So why would bikes not be allowed? To be clear, riding along Allen Rd looks pretty suicidal to me, but OSM doesn't seem to recognize suicidal=yes tags.

Just for fun I tried this on Google Maps in cycling mode and it allows traveling south from Allen Rd @ Sheppard... until Allen Rd widens to four lanes, at which point it just refuses as if the road had ended.

Please let me know if you get any info from 311. Right now it seems to me like OSM is correct as-is.

Thank you for your feedback!

Currently in OSM the portion of Allen Road between Transit Road and Eglinton is tagged as highway=motorway, which automatically disallows pedestrian and bicycle traffic. This to match with the portion of Allen Rd that Toronto has designated as an expressway, doesn't it?

It seems to me like the two portions of Allen Rd that you tagged as bicycle=no belong to the portion of the road that Toronto considers an arterial road, which matches with the designation in OSM (highway=secondary). That would imply that bicycles are allowed to ride in those portions. Further, I could not find any signage in Google Streetview forbidding bicycles traffic in the particular portions of the road that were tagged as bicycle=no. This all leads me to believe that cycling is indeed allowed and the present changeset is correct.

Do you agree? Is there something else I am missing?

Cycling is allowed on all Ontario roads, except for the #400 series of highways. bicycle=no should not be used to flag our personal opinion about which roads are suitable for riding a bicycle.

Please see bicycle=yes for usage of this tag.

Tagging ways as bicycle=yes or bicycle=no based is meant to indicate whether cycling is legally allowed or not, not whether we personally find it suitable for bicycles.

See bicycle=yes

Access tags are meant to indicate whether a particular vehicle is legally allowed to use a particular way, not whether or not it is suitable. There are other tags better suited for that, such as mtb:scale, sac_scale, smoothness, surface, etc.

Yes, the road is bikeable, but that is not a good reason to set bicycle=yes. That tag indicates that bicycles are legally allowed to ride on a particular way, not whether or not the incline or surface are suitable for them.

See bicycle=yes for more details.

For this reason I suggest reverting these changesets where the (legal) access tags of paths have been used based on personal preference of what is and isn't bikeable.

My understanding is that bicycle=no should only be used when there is some legal reason preventing bicycles to ride there. If the problem is that you don't want them to appear in your bicycle routes, then tag their smoothness, mtb:scale, or whatever else instead. Looking forward to finding an agreement here.