Hi all,

I’ve noticed many motorway shoulders in Australia (especially in Sydney) being 
mapped as cycle routes on OSM. Although this seems to be a common approach for 
motorways/other high-speed roads in Australia of which cycling is allowed on, I 
can hardly imagine it to be of any practical use (i.e. providing convenient and 
safe connections for people cycling).

Foremostly, this mapping approach defies the general purpose of cycle routes 
(both from an engineering perspective and the official OSM Wiki), that is, 
guiding people onto safe & convenient ways. Although cycling on most motorway 
shoulders in Australia is technically permitted and commonly done by the very 
few “strong and fearless” people (only ~1%, as indicated in past transport 
research), it’s both subjectively and statically quite unsafe, which gives no 
use to most people when rendered on tiles such as OpenCycleMap.

Also, these mapped motorway/high-speed road routes aren’t officially endorsed 
routes whatsoever, and are always referred to as separate pieces of 
infrastructure (e.g. “… cycleway”) by cycle-lobbying groups.
Afterall, these “routes” probably shouldn’t be mapped at all, since they aren’t 
much use to most people; tagging them with ‘cycling’: ‘designated’ and 
‘cycleway’: ‘shoulder’ would be sufficient enough. What do you think of this 
solution?

Thanks in advance,
Dongchen Yue
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