Tag:bicycle=dismount

This tag is used to express that riding a bicycle is not allowed and riders are required to dismount (and push the bicycle). In contrast, bicycle=no specifies the prohibition on riding a bicycle but does not suggest whether pushing the bicycle is legal.

In some places it is illegal to either ride or push bicycles (touristic locations, public gardens, many subway systems). See Tag:bicycle=no#Pushing bicycle for discussion about those cases.

Relationship with bicycle=no

Heavily used tag bicycle=no signifies that riding a bicycle is not permitted, but does not specify whether it is allowed to push the bicycle along. In most jurisdictions, persons pushing the bike are treated the same as pedestrians, i.e. obey the foot=* access tag. However, there also exist places where walking (without bicycle) is permitted but any sort of bicycle access (ridden, pushed or carried) is not. Those currently cannot be unambiguously tagged.

See Tag:bicycle=no#Pushing bicycle for more discussion about those cases.

Even if someone is using bicycle=no with the intention to state that pushing/carrying bicycle there is forbidden, it is impossible to distinguish bicycle=no mapped with meaning "no cycling" and "no presence of bicycles is allowed". It makes these two tags mostly equivalent. However, bicycle=dismount implies that pushing is definitely allowed. It is therefore often used where signs directly advise or instruct cyclists to dismount. bicycle=dismount was invented to fill that gap, but that did not address the ambiguity of bicycle=no.

Places where both cycling and walking are prohibited (foot=no + bicycle=no), such as a typical motorway, are not problematic, as dismounting and walking while pushing a bicycle is clearly not OK.

While roads/footways completely banning even pushing bicycles are quite rare compared to ones where just cycling is not allowed, bicycle=no is more popular. It is used over 942 000 times together with highway=* while bicycle=dismount is used 158 000 times. It indicates that majority of mappers is using bicycle=no to indicate places where pushing bicycle is OK. However, in recent years, bicycle=dismount usage is raising faster.

Some mappers use the distinction between "no" and "dismount" to map whether dismounting and pushing the bicycle is "recommended" (either directly by signs or when the section where you have to dismount is on a signed bicycle route). For example, on a signed bicycle route there could be a short section where cyclists would need to dismount. In those cases, it might be preferable to tag bicycle=dismount, because bicycle=no could imply to some routers and data users that cyclists should use another route altogether.

As of 2020, "dismount" value is supported by iD but not by JOSM. OSRM includes ways tagged with bicycle=dismount in cycling routes, but indicates that bike-pushing is required. (Some versions of OSRM similarly recommend pushing a bike against the flow of traffic along a one-way street.)

Potential redefinition

Multiple people like this tag and want to use bicycle=no for "not even bicycle pushing is allowed". This is met with standard opposition to deprecation or redefining of major tags. Since bicycle=no for "no cycling is allowed" is very widespread, mappers would need to resurvey all locations where it is used. To track such resurvey, some dedicated tag would be needed to mark whether bicycle=no is used for "no cycling allowed" or "no bicycle pushing allowed".

In 2020, it was argued that it would be easier to have a new tag for rare "no bicycle at all in addition to forbidding cycling" and let bicycle=no mean pushing a bicycle is allowed. As of 2025, no such tag has been significantly adopted.

Tag history

bicycle=dismount appeared and was used without consideration that it de facto duplicates older bicycle=no. Discussions in 2020 found two differing interpretations of bicycle=no being used for mapping: "bicycling is forbidden", and "bicycling and pushing bicycle is forbidden". This alternative interpretation of bicycle=no did not reach consensus then. In practice, bicycle=dismount has since seen significant adoption. As of 2025, this tag is used in about 240.000 ways worldwide, compared to about 1.600.000 uses of bicycle=no.

Example pictures

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See also: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cyclist_dismount_signs and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bicycles_forbidden_signs and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:No_cycling_signs

See also

• Rejection from JOSM presets (2013)
• "Usefulness of bicycle=dismount on ways"
• Tagging mailing list - Is there a good way to indicate "pushing bicycle not allowed here"?
• access=dismount
• Proposal:Vehicle dismount