California/Cycling Relations

A wiki for cycling routes in the state, focused at national network=ncn and regional/state network=rcn levels, linking to wikis for several county-wide numbered cycling networks tagged network=lcn, also properly denoted cycle_network=US:CA:YZ, where YZ is a Caltrans-designated two-alphabetic-character code for each county.

National cycle routes (nationwide, statewide, interstate / linking other states)

California has four United States Bicycle Routes:

• USBR 50 from Stateline at the Nevada border south of Lake Tahoe (concurrence with USBR 85), through Sacramento and to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge (concurrence with USBR 95),
• USBR 66 from the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica Pier (concurrence with USBR 95) through Los Angeles, Victorville, Barstow (concurrence with USBR 85) to Needles and the Colorado River at the Arizona border,
• USBR 85 from its concurrence with USBR 66 near Barstow through the Owens Valley, passing Mono Lake and Lake Tahoe (concurrence with USBR 50), through Truckee, Quincy, Mount Shasta and Yreka to the border of south-central Oregon (on to Ashland, Medford...) and
• USBR 95, a largely coastal route from the Oregon border near Crescent City through Eureka, San Francisco (concurrence with USBR 50), Big Sur Coast, San Luis Obispo, Ventura, Los Angeles (concurrence with USBR 66), Orange County and San Diego to the border with México at Imperial Beach. USBR 95 in California is the longest statewide component in the System at 1069 miles. In San Diego County there is an 8 or 10 mile gap at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, alternatives for cyclists exist (see website tags on the southern and south relations and brief description below).

There are also three additional USBR "corridors" in the state which might become USBRs 70, 87 and 90 in the future.

There is also (the public, not private ACA) Pacific Coast Bike Route from Oregon to México, which used to be administered by Caltrans but that authority has devolved to counties and cities along the route, while signage isn't always extant / accurate. Since USBR 95 rather deliberately subsumed PCBR, about thirty belts and spurs remain as differences between superseding USBR 95 and the "local" PCBR OSM has denoted for most of our history. OSM used to display PCBR in Cycle Map layer as purple (PCB) and red (proto-95, now Approved), then PCBR's relations reduced to "simply the differences" compared to USBR 95. (Overlap was significant, differences were substantial: thousands of way elements were deleted). These "devolved to local jurisdictions" PCBR segments (not directly superseded by USBR 95) are now (June, 2024, with USBR 95 Approval) better-tagged with network=lcn rather than the previous tag of network=rcn, sometimes confused for the ACA route of the same name. Present (summer '24) rendering reflects that the previous purple (rcn) PCBR remnants now render as dark blue (lcn) vestigial belts and spurs connected to the "primary" route (USBR 95, rendering red). Cycle Map layer rendering around the "Pendleton Gap" (Oceanside to Las Pulgas Gate) accurately renders red (national), contrasting well with dark blue (local) routes. Local (dark blue) routes include Pendleton Recreational Bicycling PRB (Alternative B; Better, Best, on-Base...) and Pendleton Recreational Cycling PRC (CHP-sanctioned shoulder-on-Interstate Cycling Corridor) both bridge the gap in USBR 95. Alternative A: Amtrak® bike-on-commuter-rail 28 miles in 28 minutes between Oceanside and San Clemente stations, also works for many cyclists looking to bridge the gap in 95, including long-distance cyclists who may not have a US passport, required on PRB at Pendleton Main Gate (Oceanside) northbound and Pendleton Las Pulgas Gate southbound.

Route # (rcn or ncn)	Route Name	Shield	Description	Mapped	Relation(s)	Notes
Now network=lcn + ref=PCB (largely superseded by network=ncn + ref=95)	Pacific Coast Bicycle Route		Vestigial remains of scenic, largely coastal route predominantly but not exclusively along State Route 1 (Highway 1), from Oregon to the border with México	Mapped to a large degree from the Oregon border to San Francisco and about Newport Beach, with gaps in Marin, Ventura, Orange and San Diego Counties	7063453 7063453	There are two routes named this in California: this one (public, once administered by Caltrans but since devolved to county or city jurisdiction) and another private route by Adventure Cycling Association (a national organization dedicated to long-distance bicycle touring). As it is proprietary, commercial and copyrighted, the ACA route is not what is meant to be denoted here, rather, the public one is. Signage can be confusing: originally, Caltrans erected signs (as in Santa Cruz County), yet local jurisdictions have re-routed (often adopting whole segments of the ACA route) but without re-signing! Note that PCBR has deprecated where USBR 95 has superseded PCBR, leaving behind PCBR "leftovers;" this route is now vestigial remnants that include local, minor belts and spurs off of this national route (USBR 95).
USBR 50 (network=ncn + ref=50)	USBR 50		From the Nevada border at Stateline on Lake Tahoe (connecting Reno) westward through Sacramento to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge via ferry at Vallejo.	Entered into OSM	10967238 10967238	California's first USBR.
USBR 66 (network=ncn + ref=66)	USBR 66		Connecting the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica Pier eastward to the Arizona border near Needles through Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties	Entered into OSM	7499132 7499132	Inspired by "Route 66" (Chicago-Los Angeles) from an older (century-ago) US West.
USBR 70 Corridor (might become network=ncn + ref=70)	USBR 70		From the Nevada border at Primm (connecting Las Vegas) westward through San Bernardino County to USBR 66 near Daggett	Not entered; no geographic data.	Relation not defined yet	Only a USBR corridor at this time; not a "real" route.
USBR 85 network=ncn + ref=85)	USBR 85		From San Bernardino northward through the Owens Valley, Lake Tahoe area, through Truckee, Quincy and Mount Shasta to the border of south-central Oregon (on to Ashland, Medford...)	Entered into OSM	17368186 17368186	The graphic to the left is incorrectly the "state-level" MUTCD M1-8 shield, not properly the "national-level" M1-9 shield for USBR 85, as the .svg file is not yet designed / made available.
USBR 87 Corridor (might become network=ncn + ref=87)	USBR 87		From near Ventura northward to Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, Chico, Redding and to the border of south-central Oregon (on to Klamath Falls)	Not entered; no geographic data.	Relation not defined yet	Only a USBR corridor at this time; not a "real" route.
USBR 90 Corridor (might become network=ncn + ref=90)	USBR 90		From the Arizona border/Colorado River at Blythe westward to San Diego through Riverside, Imperial and San Diego Counties	Not entered; no geographic data.	Relation not defined yet	Only a USBR corridor at this time; not a "real" route.
USBR 95 (network=ncn + ref=95)	USBR 95		From the Oregon border at Smith River southward through Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco. San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego Counties, its southern terminus at California's border with México at Imperial Beach (excluding the "Pendleton Gap").	Entered into OSM	95 north (California northern) 12891023 12891023, 95 south (California northern) 12891024 12891024, 95 north (California central) 12922709 12922709, 95 south (California central) 12882462 12882462, 95 north (California southern) 17684812 17684812, 95 south (California southern) 17463928 17463928, 95 north (California south) 17655189 17655189, 95 south (California south) 17655190 17655190	Note that PCBR has deprecated where USBR 95 has superseded PCBR, leaving behind PCBR "leftovers," remnants that include local, minor vestigial belts and spurs off of this national route (USBR 95). Pendleton Gap alternatives (A, B, C) Amtrak®, on-Base and CHP Cycling are presented.

Regional cycle routes (statewide linking counties, intracounty)

Dozens of bicycle routes in California are tagged network=rcn to denote they are at a regional level of hierarchy between national (USBRs and quasi-national) routes and local (county, city, minor area) routes. While it would be correct in OSM to also denote these with tags (see below) which unify these regional routes together into networks or sub-networks, there does not appear to be consensus how to do that, especially as Caltrans is in an early stage of developing the "national bicycle route" dialog (in 2020, USBR 50 became California's first national bicycle route, denoted network=ncn). One present point of clarity are county / large city numbered routes, which with wide consensus aggregate at the local (network=lcn) level. However, regional routes in California are more unknown: how do they number and aggregate? OSM is equipped to denote these (with network=rcn, cycle_network=* and ref=*, for example), but state-, citizen- and OSM-volunteer-level dialog about how to organize and number these also remains in early stages. "Under development at many levels."

Trends for routes already denoted network=rcn are a two- or three-letter acronym as a value for ref=* and to omit cycle_network=*, as its value is unclear. However, some have ref=* numbered values, this implies an organized statewide numbering protocol, though none is known to exist (or have any definitive authority, though it may reside with Caltrans). With no further guidance or arbitration regarding conflicts, this will inevitably lead to collisions in the network=rcn namespace / numberspace, indeed a "near collision" has already occurred: In San Francisco, there is a route tagged network=rcn, ref=30 (Golden Gate Park to Rincon Park) while there is a route tagged network=rcn, ref=30P across the mouth of the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz (new MBSST Bike Bridge), also a part of MBSST (network=rcn, ref=40) as a pedestrian-only ("walk your bike") part of the California Coastal Trail (network=rcn, ref=30 in Santa Cruz County's CycleNet de facto but not de jure bicycle route numbering protocol). In both cases (San Francisco's and Santa Cruz' local numbering protocols), it appears the route number is "promoted" to regional with no apparent concern for neighboring jurisdictions in the state of California, as the route number may collide by doing so. Clearly, this cannot happen indefinitely, as sooner or later one jurisdiction will select the same number for a regional route that another has already used. Here is an Overpass Turbo query displaying all California network=rcn routes.

Note that San Francisco Bay Trail 325779 325779 (this is only one of these so named) does not seem to be part of any particular jurisdiction (including all of California, assumed to be Caltrans' jurisdiction), same for California Coastal Trail. As it may be that quasi-governmental or non-governmental organizations are responsible for these routes, and these organizations do not seem to coordinate statewide bicycle route naming protocol(s) among themselves, there may be a need to encourage or develop this (Caltrans?), to better articulate some namespace structure at this "level" of bicycle routing. A suggested first step to untangle this is to identify the organizations responsible for the so-denoted regional routes, assigning a cycle_network=US:CA:XYZ value to the route relation, where XYZ is a short name or acronym for the organization. This can begin to identify if there are aggregates of multiple routes by single organizations at the regional level. After some wider stage of identification of a larger number of regional routes, these can begin to aggregate and perhaps a coordinated numbering protocol can sort itself out. Be aware that cycle_network=US:CA:YZ is a namespace for identifying counties with numbered bicycle networks at the local network (network=lcn) level (YZ represents each county's two-letter-alphabetic issued by Caltrans).

Regional routes like San Francisco Bay Trail (network=rcn, ref=SFB) are in earlier to middle stages of being developed and organized (at a state/regional level, often in conjunction with non-profit bicycle advocacy organizations), cataloged (here in California/Cycling Relations) and entered into OSM as route=bicycle relations, tagged network=rcn. Statewide efforts to improve regional bicycle route organization (preventing namespace numbering collisions, for example) are in early stages, as dialog has only recently begun to untangle some of the issues. Please contact SteveA who has been historically active in the space.

Several counties have significantly organized bicycle infrastructure as numbered network=lcn route networks, occasionally a "spine" or "thru" route in these is tagged network=rcn. Many of these county-numbered network=lcn routes have signage of MUTCD-approved "numbered local bicycle route sign" M1-8a. However, none or very few of the routes tagged network=rcn are similarly signed, as it isn't clear whether M1-8 ("numbered state bicycle route sign"), M1-8a or a custom-designed sign (e.g. SFB) is the correct sign to use, and no authority seems to exist in the state to organize regional-level bicycle routes (numbered or otherwise). This authority may reside with Caltrans, though this is unknown to OSM.

A tagging discussion posits that M1-8 is not "statewide" but that M1-8 and M1-8a are both local. Perhaps technically true as documented in the MUTCD, though what might emerge as an OSM consensus is that states seem to de facto sign with M1-8 as "more regional, at a statewide level" and sign with M1-8a as "more local." Ohio smears these edges (it has complex bike route numbering protocols) but this appears to be mostly true in most states, California included.

Counties with numbered (local) cycle routes

• San Francisco (a signed, well-developed, well-understood-to-exist network). This appears to be fully complete and maintained in OSM.
• San Mateo (a signed, well-developed, well-understood-to-exist network). This is now (2021-Q4) partially complete and apparently under construction in OSM.
• Santa Clara This seems to be undergoing major changes since its 2010s emergence; the network appears to be re-developing during the 2020s; see here for latest news.
• Santa Cruz The CycleNet numbering protocol proposal, each proposed route appropriately tagged state=proposed.
• Los Angeles County has locally-numbered cycle routes in OSM, however details of the numbering protocol are not readily apparent.

See also

• United_States_Bicycle_Route_System