Render bicycle=no & access=no (e.g. deprecated, dangerous path)

[nomennominatur]

[Preamble: I am relatively new to OSM. If duplicate or inappropriate, please kindly bear with me]

Proposal: Different rendering of paths with bicycle=no & access=no as compared to unrestricted paths

• Example: path 561090543
• On ground experience: Dangerous path (mortal rockfalls): rendered as normal path in cyclosm
• Preventible hazard for out-of-town hikers & bikers (families with kids)
• Rendered correctly as „Xbk“ in OSM-derivative cycling map (e.g. openmtbmap) after factually correct tagging

Please see comparison screenshots for illustration.

(below: openmtbmap Basecamp screenshot; (c)openmtbmap.org, map data by openstreetmap contributors)

(below: on ground warning sign and map at trailhead)

[Phyks]

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed report!

We do have a dedicated style for such access=no & bicycle=no paths, see https://github.com/cyclosm/cyclosm-cartocss-style/blob/master/roads.mss#L3581-L3584.

You can compare the render of https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/561090543#map=16/49.8116/7.8513&layers=Y (dangerous, not accessible, white background) with https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/361598778 (accessible, brown background). Maybe the difference is not striking enough?

[nomennominatur]

Hi! Thanks for your reply!

Maybe it was just my fault, not being deeply familiar with the cyclosm layout style, however, yes, I think that many people might confuse different graphical renderings of mtb attributes (downhill, uphill) and additional path attributes (sac scale), etc. with 'forbidden/restricted' rendering in cyclosm.

If you compare 561092212 with 26753623, both show red notches accross the paths, but the first is 'no' and the second is 'yes'.

Thus forbiden or restricted paths might benefit from an even more pronounced visual difference, which could be accomplished (maybe?) by either:

• graphical by a line that has even thicker red 'barrier' notches across ( e.g. --||--||--||--||--) & keep these red notches exclusively for access restrictions and not use them for other path attributes, or

• graphical by a symbol beside the path (I admit that this could be confused with street signs, and since OSM philosophy is 'map what is on the ground', it may not be a good idea to place virtual 'do not enter' signs on the map)

• textual by adding a description alongside the path (much as openmtbmap does; however their 'Xbk' is not self-explanatory; maybe 'restricted' or 'forbidden' or 'no biking' would do).

[nomennominatur]

Additional comment: The confusion may be increased (as in my example) in case there is a change of several path attributes at the same junction or geographical position (i.e. change of 'mtb_scale' / 'sac_scale' co-located with change of 'acces' / 'bike' attributes. In these cases graphical disambiguation may be especially hard to achieve.

[nomennominatur]

Brainstorming/ first draft of proposal how to potentially render restricted paths:

IMHO, a rendering of access=no / bike=no should fulfill six criteria:

1. Current CyclOSM rendering should not be uprooted, as many users may already be accustomed to it.
2. Information content (i.e. mtb_scale) should not be lost when adding access-restriction Information.
3. Rendering of access restrictions should be consistent across different path attributes
4. Visual rendering of access restrictions should be unambiguous.
5. Visual rendering of access restrictions should be intuitive to understand.
6. Visual rendering should take into account visual physiology and sensory psychology:
   6 a) Rendering should supply cues of "danger" or "attention" by employing anthropologically constant 'signal colours'.
   6 b) Since 'red' is already in use on CyclOSM, 'yellow-black stripes' could be used.

I am neither an experienced cartographer nor a graphic designer. This is just a quick and dirty exploratory visualization of what came to my mind. Size of 'X' could be smaller in order to retain a better view onto underlying terrain, however, a minimum size will be mandatory in order to convey the outline/filling characteristic. In order to reduce map cluttering, an ‚X‘ every other ‚|‘ -tick might even be sufficient.

Unfortunately, I currently do not have the time to setup a local mapnik/carto development environment and testing fork, although I plan to do so in the near future. Thus I currently have no experience in turning the above tentative idea into a carto css. Sorry.

[nomennominatur]

Another afterthought: I have heard that in some countries (e.g. Austria), municipalities seem to deny access to recreational paths on bikes by default. In order to refrain from overwhelming such a region, a first starting point could be to render the prominent „X“ exclusively on paths that have the attributes [ access=no OR (bike=no AND foot=no) ] to filter for general restrictions.

[Florimondable]

If you compare 561092212 with 26753623, both show red notches accross the paths, but the first is 'no' and the second is 'yes'.

I think you’re being mistaken here, the access=no is simply rendered with the path in grey.
mtb:scale is rendering with red notches in both path here.

[nomennominatur]

You are right, I admit that I was initially mistaken in reading the cyclosm path rendering. I should have properly read the legend first (apology for that).

Nonetheless, I feel that a light grey path color is a somewhat counterintuitive rendering of „forbidden“, which may benefit from a more pronounced visual characterization.

Since I have been made aware of the abundance of bike=no attributes in some geographic regions, it might be difficult to strike a good balance, without overburdening the map. Thus my previous idea of using the more conspicuous rendering (i.e. crosses/ ‚X‘) only for paths with multiple „no“ attributes.

[quasart]

FYI I remember the first time I met these red notches, I thought they mean something like forbidden access. Like red barriers.

I don’t understand why forbidden path are tagged with mountain bike scale. Should we hide the scale notches in this case ?

[nomennominatur]

I think that, in a way, it is OK to honour the OSM principle to „map what is on the ground“.

Thus, if a path is physically there, and if it has certain MTB characteristics, I find it valid to show them. However, I find it equally important to prominently show access restrictions. The individual decision to ride a restricted path or to adhere to the restriction is up to the individual biker.

It is, in a way, similiar to showing a one way street or a street prohibited for cars. If it is there, it is to be shown on the map. If some car driver opts to drive against the one way street, or to enter a pedestrian zone, it is his decision as much as running over a red traffic light.

I am absolutely with you that the red notches are counterintuitive for mtb_scale, as red perpendicular lines intuitively, for many people, may suggest ‚forbidden‘. Since it has been that way on cyclosm for some time, however, it might be better to retain the visual elements that users have become accustomed to, and to complement them with more intense „restriction“ rendering, for example my suggestion of ‚X‘...

(Sorry for the longish posting)

[nomennominatur]

What about this alternative rendering of restricted paths?

By filling only every other space between ticks,

• line colour will still be visible,
• ticks will still be visible,
• no path attribute information will be lost...

The "no entry" sign is intuitive and international...

One could then try out this design on different geographic areas in order to decide, which attribute rule would be most suitable for the production environment:

(a) 'access=no' OR 'bike=no'

(b) 'access=no' OR ('bike=no' AND 'foot=no')

[nomennominatur]

@Phyks , @Florimondable
Any opinion on the above?

[Florimondable]

Of course no access sign is easy to understand. But the it'll probably not possible to draw it small with enough detail.

My opinion on the matter is current rendering is ok, it's a good balance between the importance of the information (medium) and the subtlety of it's rendering (not too visible too faded).

May be we could rendering something for "dangerous path", need to find the tags for that, hazard=falling_rocks I guess for this case.

[nomennominatur]

Key:hazard=falling_rocks is technically correct, however, taginfo shows, that this attribute is very, very rarely mapped (global count less than 160 instances), so this may not be worth pursuing.

[Florimondable]

Yes it’s a pity that tagging is not more used.

I’d like to had for the record the range for forbidden access to bicyle is wide it’s from a 100m of little too dangerous road for common cyclist (but some will use it), private property withou barrier, to military minefield where dying is highly probable. So discrimation between these cases should be done by adding information.

[Phyks]

Hi,

We are discussing two different issues here:

• bicycle=no + access=no is not rendered in a prominent enough way.
• mtb_scale indication is confused with access restrictions.

Regarding the first point, I think the current render handles the distinction and is fine (grey inline of such paths). I would not go towards more symbols on the map, which are likely to overload it.

Then, we are down to the second point, which is confusion between STS scale (especially the level 2, rendered in red) which is confused with an access restriction (is it for every STS level or particularly for STS 2 ?).

One option I could think of would be to replace the hatches by dots, which might be likely to reduce the meaning of "restriction" ?

[DerDings]

I think the problem is that users are used to inaccessible ways shown completely in faded grey, without any color. But in this example, the pattern is colored.
The concept of making everything inaccessible just grey is good, I would stick with it. No extra symbols for that.
My first Idea would be to just make the patterns of the mtb:scale to be also greyed out on inaccessible ways. Problem here is that STS 0, 2 and 3 as well as 1 and 4 would be indestinguishable then.
So they need to be distinguishable by their shape entirely:

STS	pattern accessible	pattern inaccessible
0	-I- (blue)	-I- (grey)
1	-II- (blue)	-II- (grey)
2	-III- (red)	-III- (grey)
3	-IIII- (black)	-IIII- (grey)
4	-IIIII- (black)	-IIIII- (grey)
5	-IIIIII- (black)	-IIIIII- (grey)

Another Idea would be roman numbers instead of just lines. They make shorter patterns which better align with curved paths:

STS	pattern accessible	pattern inaccessible
0	-0- (blue)	-0- (grey)
1	-I- (blue)	-I- (grey)
2	-II- (red)	-II- (grey)
3	-III- (black)	-III- (grey)
4	-IV- (black)	-IV- (grey)
5	-V- (black)	-V- (grey)

Maybe they can be rotated like path names are, but in my opinion this is not necessary. "IV" and "V" can also be read upside down, and there luckily is no STS 6 that could be confused with an upside down STS 4 Symbol.

[amadvance]

Hi @DerDings

Take care that there is STS 6. See #583

[DerDings]

Hi @DerDings

Take care that there is STS 6. See #583

Oh, I did know only STS 0-5 (singletrail-skala (de)).

mtb:scale=6 seems to be only defined in the osm wiki, which says

Classify ways with 6 that are not rideable at all for a mtbiker.

To me, mtb:scale=6 looks like a trolltag.

So I think the best way to handle this is to consider mtb:scale=6 as can_bicycle=no:

mtb:scale	pattern accessible	pattern inaccessible
0	-0- (blue)	-0- (grey)
1	-I- (blue)	-I- (grey)
2	-II- (red)	-II- (grey)
3	-III- (black)	-III- (grey)
4	-IV- (black)	-IV- (grey)
5	-V- (black)	-V- (grey)
6	-VI- (grey) +consider it as can_bicycle=no, so also the path itself is greyed out	-VI- (grey)

But if it's not wanted to assume mtb:scale=6 makes a path inaccessible to cyclists, there needs to be at least a warning element in the rendering of mtb:scale=6, like a striking colour. Maybe DarkOrange? But that would not be striking combined with an route=mtb. Maybe Yellow?

mtb:scale	pattern accessible	pattern inaccessible
0	-0- (blue)	-0- (grey)
1	-I- (blue)	-I- (grey)
2	-II- (red)	-II- (grey)
3	-III- (black)	-III- (grey)
4	-IV- (black)	-IV- (grey)
5	-V- (black)	-V- (grey)
6	-VI- (new color)	-VI- (grey)

Note that IV and an upside-down VI are still distinguishable. It's just that I think they should be even more distinguishable since mtb:scale=6 can be very dangerous.

Also, I wouldn't put the word "STS 6" in the legend, since there is only STS 0-5. mtb:scale=6 should rather be called "above STS 5", "unrideable" or something like that.

edit: fix link and typos

[DerDings]

The problem of colored symbols on an inaccessible ways also applie to mtb:scale:imba.
Using the same approach of greyed out symbols on inaccessible ways could look like this:

mtb:scale:imba	pattern accessible	pattern inaccessible
0	-⚪- (white)	-⚪- (white)
1	-🟢- (green)	-⚪- (grey)
2	-🟦- (blue)	-⬜- (grey)
3	-◆- (black)	-◇- (grey)
4	-◆◆- (black)	-◇◇- (grey)

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:mtb:scale:imba

I suggest using white for everythying with mtb:scale:imba=0, regardless whether it may have restricted access, because it still looks faded. This way, 0 and 1 can be distinguished even on inaccessible ways.

[amadvance]

Hi @DerDings

Why not using the STS number instead of a roman number ? They don't suffer the problem of reading them upside-down, and it makes very easy to associate them to the STS scale.

Anyway, for mtb:scale=6, I think that using a completely different symbol would be better. Like "-X-".

[DerDings]

Hi @DerDings

Why not using the STS number instead of a roman number ? They don't suffer the problem of reading them upside-down, and it makes very easy to associate them to the STS scale.

Thats also possible. I only chose the roman numbers because they look similar to the current style.

Anyway, for mtb:scale=6, I think that using a completely different symbol would be better. Like "-X-".

That is a good idea. Matches both the arabic and roman numbers, while catering the information „don't go there“ at the same time.