I'm curious if bicycle boulevards would qualify as living streets, given that a living street would most closely describe a bicycle boulevard in OSM terms, though a bicycle boulevard might lack pedestrian facilities. Frequently, these are not streets you would want to let the kids play in, as the volume of fast-moving, near-silent vehicles would present a very real collision hazard at peak traffic times. This kind of way has sprung up only in the last 10 years or so, and almost all of them were formerly highway=residential prior to becoming bicycle boulevards.
Bicycle boulevards are more major than residential streets (intersections with residential streets have the residential streets facing stop signs, to minimize the need for bicycles to stop), intersections with larger (tertiary or better) ways typically have restrictions preventing motorists from doing anything but making a right turn from the bicycle boulevard and/or motorists from the major way from turning onto the bicycle boulevard, and as often as not have traffic signals (with more heavily traveled bicycle boulevards changing in favor of the cyclists in advance, particularly in Portland's Little Bohemia). At large roundabouts, the bicycle boulevard typically has a cutout through the central island, with YIELD TO BICYCLES signs on the central ring of the roundabout (through bicycles typically do not have to stop or yield, and have the right-of-way over vehicles already in the roundabout). The restrictions on motorists make bicycle boulevards unsuitable for rat runs. Typically, cycle maps I've seen that are aware of these ways show them at a much higher priority than they would on your average street map, with the larger way de-prioritized, in some cases quite severely, depending on traffic flow and bicycle facilities (such as US 30 Bypass in Oregon, a primary, typically being shown as a minor through street like most of the streets intersecting it on cycle maps, with the bicycle boulevard a few blocks off shown as the primary way across Northeast Portland). I am aware of bicycle boulevards existing in at least three states and one province, and I'm sure there's more out there, so I'm a little surprised this hasn't been tackled. (Please don't CC me when replying; I get the list, and I don't need two copies (plus this defeats unsubscribing if someone later wants to leave the conversation). Please use your mailer's reply-to-list feature or check your To: and CC: headers!)
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