Tag:bicycle=no
 bicycle = no
|
 |
| Description |
|---|
Indicates that riding bicycle is not allowed. 
|
| Group: restrictions |
| Used on these elements |
    |
| Status: de facto |
| Tools for this tag |
This tag is used to express that cycling on given object such as highway=tertiary is not allowed.
If the sign tells the rider to dismount or walk the bike, use bicycle=dismount instead of this tag.
Ambiguity
With the increasing use of bicycle=dismount, bicycle=no has sometimes been used to indicate "no bicycles allowed at all". As both interpretations occur in the data and their proportion is unknown, bicycle=no does not always clearly indicate whether pushing a bicycle is permitted.
Examples
| Example | Tagging |
|---|---|
  
|
(on way representing highway) |
|
(on node representing crossing) |
|
(on way representing boardwalk) |
|
(on way representing walkway on a bridge) |
Pushing bicycle
Note that carrying or pushing bicycles may (or may not) be still accepted[2][3].
In some places it is illegal to both ride and push bicycle but it is legal to walk[4], there is no good tagging scheme to indicate it[5], bicycle_pushed=no and bicycle_possession=no were suggested[6][7] in 2020 but have not been adopted at all by 2025. In 2025 bicycle:dismount=no was suggested[8][9] instead.
Objects where both cycling and walking (foot=no + bicycle=no) such as typical motorway are not problematic, as dismounting and walking while pushing bicycle is clearly not OK.
There is also bicycle=dismount for tagging places where one is allowed to push bicycle but not allowed to cycle. Note that while roads/footways completely banning even pushing bicycles are quite rare compared to ones where just cycling is not allowed, bicycle=no is far more popular than bicycle=dismount. It is used over 942 000 times together with highway=*[10] while bicycle=dismount just 73 000 times[11]. It indicates that majority of mappers is using bicycle=no to indicate places where pushing bicycle is OK.
Note that some mappers used bicycle=no to mark "not even carrying/pushing bicycle here is legal". It is however impossible to distinguish bicycle=no mapped with meaning "no cycling" and "no presence of bicycles is allowed" without using extra tags (as noted at the beginning of this section).
It makes bicycle=dismount preferred as an unambiguous alternative to potentially confusing bicycle=no in cases where it is known that pushing/carrying bicycle is allowed, but riding it is forbidden (which is majority of them).
See also
bicycle=dismount- A tag which indicates that riding is not permitted, but pushing the bike across is explicitly permitted.- Key:access - page about access restrictions in general
- General page about bicycle infrastructure
References
- ↑ strictly speaking it is legal during very bad weather or when cycling with a small child
- ↑ https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/9158
- ↑ https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2013-October/thread.html#15135
- ↑ see
bicycle=dismountfor examples - ↑ https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2019-November/thread.html#49044
- ↑ https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2019-November/049072.html
- ↑ https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2020-July/054178.html
- ↑ https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/solving-the-dreaded-access-dismount-problem/134288
- ↑ https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/clarifying-default-bicycle-access-on-highway-footway-and-highway-pedestrian/139023
- ↑ https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/bicycle=no#combinations
- ↑ https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/bicycle=dismount#combinations