I mostly ride a bicycle, walk, catch buses and trains
I’m a Committee Member of Cycle Basingstoke - we have been working with the Council on the Basingstoke Cycling Strategy - and OSM is useful to illustrate points (not least because it is more up-to-date than closed maps)
Who is allowed to use it (if it’s a right of way). I tend to use “private” rather than “no” for modes not legally allowed.
For footpaths where journey planners assume that dismounted bicycles can be pushed, mark impassable paths (e.g. ones with stiles, narrow kissing gates, or just too narrow) with bicycle=no to prevent routing
Barriers
Relations
NCN, RCN, LCN
MTB - if something is part of an MTB relation, it’s probably not good for my bike
Bus routes and stops (sometimes)
Points of interest and landmarks
Farms, churches, and woods make good landmarks in the countryside, or to describe places to other people
Cafes, pubs, supermarkets, and stations are either destinations or landmarks
Benches and toilets
Developments
Developments (residential or commercial) affect routing and traffic flow
Tools
OnePlus 7 Pro, the OSMTracker app, and the Locus Map Classic app
Usually from a bicycle, a bus, or on foot
I got a cheap handlebar bag recently, so that should make it easier to make notes as I go
Mapillary (Mapillary description), either directly from my old phone (OnePlus 3T), or by converting the videos from my Cycliq or CrossTour bike cameras
I avoid combining building/landuse/natural areas and linear barriers with routable highways - e.g. unless a fence actually reaches the centre-line of the road, I end it at the edge of the road. An exception is tunnel=building_passage, where the tunnel is effectively part of the building
I treat highways (which are recorded as 1D lines despite being 2D areas in reality) as representing the centre line of the road
For PROWs, I use the physical highway type (e.g. track), rather than the legal one. As a result, I then use multiple *=private to exclude certain types of traffic
For PROWs, I record the legal rights of way for foot, bicycle, horse, motor_vehicle (since journey planners do not generally use the designation tag)
For public highways that are not PROWs, if the access matches the default for that highway type, I don’t record the access
For Public Bridleways, I use the old UK Tagging Guidelines (bicycle=yes, horse=designated, foot=designated)
Where an amenity (e.g. pub, shop, café, bed & breakfast) is the main occupant of a building (or a floor of that building) I tend to add the amenity tags to the building rather than having a separate disconnected node
Cycling infrastructure
For off-road cycle paths and cycle tracks, I generally aim for the following, which will allow bicycles and pedestrians to be routed along it: highway=cycleway/path (path for narrow paths or towpaths), bicycle=designated, foot=designated (unless it’s a cycle track with no pedestrian access), segregated=no/yes, surface=asphalt/concrete/compacted/gravel/dirt/sand/mud, lit=yes/no
For on-road stuff, I add cycleway=shared_lane/lane/track/share_busway (or cycleway:left/right). For contraflow cycle routes, I add oneway:bicycle=no as well as the type of cycleway. For cycleway=lane, I have started adding cycleway:lane=advisory/exclusive.
In both cases, cycleway:est_width/cycleway:width are important, to indicate paths or lanes that are too narrow (eg between Ottershaw and Woking - less than a metre wide for a two-way shared use footway)
Crossings
I tend to tag traffic lights on the stop lines with traffic_signals:direction=forward/backward, and pelican/toucan/Pegasus crossings at the crossing point, rather than merging everything into one node
Crossings slow down traffic along a highway, but help pedestrian (and bicycle if relevant) traffic across the highway
Where the crossings are not simple (e.g. around roundabouts or dual carriageways, or staggered crossings), I add the footways for more accurate routing
I tend to end footways at dropped kerbs if possible (to cater for people with mobility issues, pushchairs, wheelchairs, luggage, etc.)
Contacting me
Since I changed my email address, changeset comments are working for me.