United States/Bicycle Networks

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Flag of United States Part of United States mapping project.

This page intends to help organize efforts to map Bicycle routes in the United States, especially as they coalesce together into networks.

Due to wiki-associated software upgrades, the map layer as seen here is not-quite-correct. One-click fix: hover over the upper-right "layers stack" icon and click "Cycle Map" button to see the routes (red at this widest-scale) as part of USA's national bicycle networks. This live slippy map can be panned and zoomed.

The United States has many bicycle route networks. This page discusses distinctions between them, reflected in the network=* and cycle_network=* tags.

What to map

OpenStreetMap focuses on mapping what's "on the ground": bicycle infrastructure and formally designated bicycle routes. We don't map informal "rides" or third-party route recommendations, because they may be ephemeral or subjective.

Do map:

  • Bike lanes, sharrows, multi-use trails, dedicated cycleways and perhaps desire paths. See Bicycle for relevant tags. Also, map Mountain biking trails, these have specific taggings distinct from Bicycle. Both of these (paved and unpaved bicycle facilities) might be called "infrastructure mapping," distinct from "route mapping," below.
  • Bike routes that are marked by signs or blazes. Depending on the locality, signs or blazes may be put up by a state department of transportation (USBRs), county or city streets department, park district, non-governmental organization (as in the case of the East Coast Greenway), or community volunteer group. These routes are mapped as route=bicycle relations with network=* and cycle_network=* tags to distinguish between various route networks. See the rest of this page for details. (Mountain bike route mapping, using elements of unpaved infrastructure element ways in route=mtb relations, are not included here in this wiki).
  • Officially proposed routes over existing infrastructure, where it is expected that the eventually-approved route will be marked by signs or blazes once formally designated / officially approved. See below.

One route relation representing both directions of a bike route is called a "bidirectional" route; most bike routes are bidirectional, tagged with forward and backward role tags where necessary to express "only-in-this-direction travel." Two route relations for one bike route (one for each direction) are called "unidirectional." Unidirectional routes are gathered into a super-relation.

Do not map:

  • Bike routes found only on an official planning map. These routes may be aspirational or used for funding purposes, but mapping them in OSM could mislead end users, especially if they contradict what's on the ground.
  • Route recommendations or "rides" published by a third party – such as a local cycling club, advocacy group, commercial entity, or individual – who doesn't have any control over the bicycle infrastructure. There are a number of OSM-powered routers that use the bike infrastructure we do map to recommend rides. There are also sites like RideWithGPS for sharing rides.

International

network=icn
ref=ISL
cycle_network=ISL

OpenStreetMap in North America (Canada, USA, México) contains one international bicycle route: International Selkirk Loop (relation 6704909 ISL) linking Idaho, Washington and British Columbia. According to Idaho Transportation Department: "The portions of the route on Idaho's state highway system are coincident with two scenic byways, the Pen d'Oreille Scenic Byway and the Panhandle Historic Rivers Passage. The latter comprises the southern leg of the International Selkirk Loop. How the route will be co-signed has not yet been determined." In late 2016 OSM entered these route data, North America's first network=icn route=bicycle. However, as this route is also shared with motor vehicles, if other (better-suited, parallel) segments specifically designated for bicycles are actual route infrastructure, please update the ISL route relation with these elements.

Adventure Cycling Association (ACA)-sponsored Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) touches the USA/México border at Antelope Wells, New Mexico, traverses multiple Rocky Mountain states, crosses the international border at Roosville, Montana into the Canadian province of Alberta, continues through Canada's Banff National Park and finally terminates in Jasper National Park. So, while it might seem correct to add network=icn or network=ncn to GDMBR, neither are correct tags, as both imply a fully paved route=bicycle and this route (correctly tagged route=mtb) is >85% unpaved (and the route data are private). GDMBR displays in Lonvia's MTB renderer at zoom level >12 as a mountain bike route which crosses the USA/Canada border.

A few paved ACA route segments (private/commercial, copyrighted) in the USA (cycle_network=US:ACA) are in OSM as regional routes (network=rcn), as they span entire states and cross state borders. These are neither international, national nor quasi-national (network=ncn: USBRs + several quasi-national routes get this tag, see below). Most ACA routes are deliberately not in OSM and those few which are entered may be incomplete or obsolete. If/as ACA routes are added/improved (e.g. cyclists enter their GPS tracks or OSM obtains permission, which we do not have), some may promote to network=ncn (as quasi-national) or network=icn (if they cross an international border). Please see Quasi-national section and USBRS Discussion page.

An (unpaved? it had many paved members) route=mtb called "Baja Divide" crossed the international border between USA and México at Tecate. This was entered into OSM in 2020. However, the website tagged in the relation as its data source is clearly copyrighted. As no explicit permission to enter these route data was cited from the copyright holder, this relation violated our ODbL and so was removed from OSM. Also, as it isn't signed, this route ("ride," really) is in the category of "what OSM does not map" (see above). This means that there are no (known) bicycle routes in OSM which cross the USA - México border (neither route=bicycle nor route=mtb).

National

network=ncn
ref=1
cycle_network=US:US
network=ncn
ref=76
cycle_network=US:US
Main article: United States Bicycle Route System

The United States Bicycle Route System (USBRS) was formally established in 1978 as a national numbered bicycle network by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

In 1982, AASHTO inaugurated the first two routes into the USBRS:

  • USBR 1 in North Carolina and Virginia and
  • USBR 76 in Virginia.

The System languished during the 1980s and 1990s. A "National Corridor Plan" was developed during the 2000s, allowing each of the fifty states of the US to harmoniously develop USBRs using a cohesive national numbered grid of planned route corridors and a regularized numbering protocol with the following rules:

  • East-West routes are even-numbered,
  • North-South routes are odd-numbered,
  • Belt routes (depart from the main route and reconnect) are preceded by an even hundreds-place digit, spur routes (to a destination or connect two routes) are preceded by an odd hundreds-place digit; either a belt or a spur may be simply suffixed with "A",
  • "Business routes" are (to be) suffixed with "B" (none exist) and
  • Route numbers generally increase from lower numbers in the eastern and northern USA to higher numbers in the western and southern USA.

May 2011 saw the first major expansion of the nascent System. Five new parent routes, two child routes, and one alternate route were created, along with modifications to the existing routes in Virginia and the establishment of USBR 1 in New England. Since 2012, growth has been robust. For a full history of the route by route growth of the System, please see Talk:United_States_Bicycle_Route_System#History_of_the_USBRS.2C_route_by_route.

USBRS (numbered national) routes use tag network=ncn in route relations + ref=# to denote the USBR's number designation + cycle_network=US:US.

The older black and white M1-9 "numbered national bicycle route" sign shield (seen to the right and above) was MUTCD-approved from the 1970s through 2013. The newer green sign (seen to the right) is also M1-9 and has replaced the black and white M1-9 as official in the current (late 2023 / early 2024) MUTCD edition. It is AASHTO approved. (Previously, states got waivers from FHWA to use the green sign as "interim official.") The color change to green is to better differentiate it from other black and white route number signs and to align it with the color of Bike Route signs. The new sign also has the "US" imprint to show it is different from quasi-national, state and local level bike route signs (see below).

The entry into OSM of proposed USBRs (see Proposed, below) follows some carefully-crafted guidelines. Before you might enter into OSM a proposed USBR, please see the Main article's Proposed section.

Quasi-national

network=ncn
ref=ECG
cycle_network=US
network=ncn
ref=MRT
cycle_network=US
network=ncn
ref=9-11
cycle_network=US:USA

Several (named, not numbered) USA bicycle routes are quasi-national. These are determined by consensus to be so significantly "national in scope" that OSM includes them in the US national cycleway network by tagging them network=ncn. Quasi-national routes are explicitly not part of USBRS (USA's only official national bicycle network; see below about ACA's private, proprietary, copyrighted national bicycle network, largely and purposefully unentered into OSM). Quasi-national routes can be defined by governments (at various levels), or by non-governmental organizations who sign these with distinct route markers or blazes to uniquely identify them. Hence, their route data are public, what OSM calls "quasi-private:" not AASHTO-approved, but usable under OSM's ODbL, as signs or blazes are "on-the-ground verifiable." It is easy to see if a US national-scope bicycle route is national or quasi-national: national routes (USBRs) display numbered shields, quasi-national routes display names or acronyms on shields.

OpenStreetMap in the US contains (at least) eight quasi-national bicycle routes:

  • Mississippi River Trail (MRT, identical to USBR 45 & 45A in Minnesota, though extending much further south through ten states, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, often on both sides of the river),
  • 9-11 National Memorial Trail (9-11, 2684 km / 1648 miles long, shares several statewide segments of ECG, USBRs and Great Allegheny Passage) in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia. "9-11 NMT" is defined as an alphanumeric acronym, not a number. Portions of this route are off-road trail (gravel, dirt, otherwise unpaved infrastructure). The September 11th National Memorial Trail uses an M1-8a bicycle route shield bearing the logo of the September 11th National Memorial Trail Alliance,
  • Natchez Trace Parkway (NTP), 714 km / 444 miles long through Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. The United States' Department of the Interior's National Park Service manages this "mixed use" national resource: in addition to also allowing pedestrians and equestrians, and identical with this route=bicycle relation, infrastructure elements are shared by a route=road, where speed limits for shared-use, not-always-mode-segregated automobile traffic can reach 50 MPH (80 km/hr),
  • Grand Rounds Scenic Byway System (GR) around Minneapolis, Minnesota, tagged cycle_network=US:MN:MPRB, designated a National Scenic Byway (NSB) by the US Secretary of Transportation (who also designates as NSB "All-American Roads"). Considering Twin Cities' density of bicycle routes, GR's designation, GR being an exemplary urban way and other factors, quasi-national is an apt designation for GR (and other NSBs). GR is operated by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board while the route also has "a national designation," so tags seem harmonious; other NSB cycleways similarly entering OSM can and should grow into this quasi-national categorization.

ECG and MRT traverse nearly a dozen states each over several thousand kilometers/miles, but are neither USBRs nor state/regional routes (see State and Regional, below). Hence, these two quasi-private bicycle routes were determined to be quasi-national, tagged network=ncn. While shorter than ECG and MRT, WNEG connects Canada (and Montreal via Quebec's Route Verte) to the Atlantic Ocean at ECG, so WNEG also elevates to quasi-national (it is also quasi-private, not private). ISL is international (via network=icn) while from a USA perspective, its US segment is considered quasi-national (in a separate US-only relation; this may be deleted). Since the US has only one national numbered bicycle network (the USBRS, routes are tagged cycle_network=US:US), quasi-national US routes should be distinguishable from these. As each quasi-national route is an independent US national-scope route, none are members of any particular national cycle network, so ECG, MRT, WNEG and the USA segments of ISL are tagged cycle_network=US. Because of its legislative assertion by the US Congress, 9-11 NMT is tagged cycle_network=US:USA, while Natchez Trace Parkway is tagged cycle_network=US:NPS. Again, national routes (USBRs) display numbered shields, quasi-national routes display names or acronyms (including "9-11 NMT") on their shields.

Bidirectional network=ncn routes traversing a single state (USBRs 25, 37, 40, 41, 44, 45, 51, 70, 77, 79, 80, 81, 85, spur/belt/alternate and hundreds-digit routes, GR, ISL's USA route and NTP, which traverses three states) are single relations (except 201, which traverses two states). The network=ncn routes traversing multiple states (1, 7, 10, 11, 15, 20, 21, 23, 30, 35, 36, 50, 66, 76, 87, 90, 95, 97, 201, ECG, MRT, WNEG and 9-11 NMT) are super-relations, each containing the (possibly unidirectional) statewide relations. Numbered network=ncn routes in the USBRS are signed with one of the two kinds/colors of MUTCD-approved "numbered national bicycle route" signs (M1-9, seen above). Named network=ncn routes not in the USBRS (quasi-nationals ECG + MRT + WNEG + ISL's USA segments + 9-11 NMT, possibly NTP...) use custom signs displaying names or acronyms of the kind seen to the right.

Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) is a bicycle advocacy organization in the USA which promotes long-distance bicycle touring. ACA has developed a national-scope bicycle network of about two dozen named (not numbered) routes. These route data are private (proprietary / copyrighted by ACA), so their entry into OSM violates our ODbL. However, some cyclists captured GPS data while riding a few (<3) of these routes, so for these ACA route segments which have been entered, OSM determined by careful consensus to best define these as regional routes (see State and Regional, below), not national or quasi-national — their data are now entered state by state. This state-at-a-time data isolation helps when a state might decide to "promote" a significant portion of or the entirety of an ACA route into a USBR, which has happened with, for example, USBR 76 in Kansas. Some ACA route data now entered into OSM might be obsolete or incorrect. Importantly, please do not consider ACA's substantial routes as part of either OSM's numbered national network (the USBRS) or the quasi-national routes listed above, as they are quite distinct from one another: ACA routes are private. By contrast, quasi-national routes are not private, they are quasi-private (usable under ODbL, as they are "publicly signed" as described above): ECG, MRT, WNEG, ISL, 9-11 NMT, NTP and GR are in the public domain and are fully public (as are USBRs).

More historical background and information on quasi-national routes, as well as potential methods by which quasi-national and regional (see State and Regional, below) routes can be modified, grow and promote (possibly to USBRs) can be found in this wiki's Discussion page. Before modifying or promoting existing US regional or quasi-national bicycle routes, please read this page to better understand some of the issues involved.

State and Regional

network=rcn
ref=1
cycle_network=US:DE

A growing number of states (Delaware, New York, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, Massachusetts, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania...) have their own state bicycle route networks, usually numbered (Pennsylvania uses letters, not numbers and Ohio uses both letters and numbers). In Ohio (for example, around Dayton on the "Miami Valley Trails" network), some counties have begun erecting numbered state route signs. Signs may vary from the MUTCD-approved "numbered state bicycle route" sign (M1-8, seen to the right), and some local networks may use this same oval. Delaware's statewide network uses this M1-8 sign, while Maryland uses the D11-1 generic "Bike Route" sign seen below. Statewide cycleway networks use network=rcn in route relations + cycle_network=US:XY where XY is the ISO 3166-2:US code (same as postal abbreviation) for the state. While the MUTCD seems to indicate M1-8 and M1-8a are both signs for local bike routes, it is observed that M1-8 is used "more often" as a regional route marker and M1-8a is used "more often" as a local route marker. (Ohio is one state where this is less consistent).

This (network=rcn) includes private (non-state/non-public, proprietary and copyrighted) named regional routes like Adventure Cycling Association's Transamerica Trail and Underground Railroad Bicycle Route: even though these are multi-state routes, each state-at-a-time segment is correctly denoted with network=rcn. Only when a state promotes (as proposed, see below) or receives AASHTO approval on a named or numbered regional route, becoming a new USBR ("goes first"), should a relation tagged network=ncn be created and state segments be promoted into it. In the event multiple states simultaneously receive AASHTO approval as a single-numbered USBR, create numbered network=ncn relations as described (one for each state) and include them in a new network=ncn super-relation. The states need not be contiguous.

Emerging in the United States are cycle_network=US:Z values for public, quasi-private and private regional cycleway network routes, where Z is a brief name or abbreviation for the name of the regional cycleway network. For example, public National Park System routes (like Natchez Trace Parkway) get cycle_network=US:NPS, while (the few entered) private routes in Adventure Cycling Association's network get cycle_network=US:ACA. Use good judgement entering route data, as they may be copyrighted; only enter route data compatible with OSM's license and/or with explicit permission. Public route data (signed or blazed in the real-world, or published via paper or digitally by a government) can always be entered into OSM, quasi-private route data can also always be entered, but private route data should not be entered (a few ACA routes have been, even though OSM may not have explicit permission). A tenet in OSM says "if you actually ride the route and capture those data via GPS, the resulting GPX data are yours." While this can allow otherwise-copyrighted data into OSM, be cautious entering such data (including their name): they must be "personally sourced," not copied from data which are copyrighted.

Local

network=lcn
ref=44
cycle_network=US:TX:Dallas
generic lcn=yes

Some cities (Washington, DC; Portland, Oregon; Berkeley and San Francisco, California; Binghamton, New York; Sandpoint, Idaho) and counties (Santa Clara, California; Travis, Texas) have a local cycle network comprised of bicycle boulevards, dedicated cycleways, bike lanes and other roadways, which may or may not be designated as specific (numbered or explicitly named) routes. These signed routes use network=lcn + cycle_network=US:XY:Locality (where XY is the ISO 3166-2:US code — the same as the postal abbreviation — for the state and Locality is the name of the county, city or locality) in route relations if specific routes have been designated (via either the M1-8a local bike route sign oval seen here or a county/city/local government published bike route map). If a route is explicitly numbered, enter its number as a ref=* value. Otherwise, if only the D11-1 generic "Bike Route" sign seen to the right and below is posted without labeling or numbering of routes, OSM ways so signed as local bike routes should be tagged lcn=yes, either directly or as members of a network=lcn relation tagged lcn=yes.

Use network=lcn in other "local" contexts such as a university (public or private) bicycle network, a localized small-to-medium-sized area with established paved bicycle routes (e.g. a private ranch), or a corporate campus such as an expansive office park (e.g. large movie studio) with its own bicycle routes. In these cases, tag each route with cycle_network=US:XY:Locality:Network_Name where XY is the ISO 3166-2:US code for the state, Locality is the name of the county and Network_Name is the name of the local cycleway network. However, be careful to avoid ambiguity with other local networks which may be named similarly; the cycle_network=* tag should assure the named network is unambiguous.

Proposed networks (at any level)

If a cycleway is part of a network with a proposed route numbering (such as proposed routes in the USBRS or the CycleNet bicycle route numbering protocol proposal in Santa Cruz County, California) tag state=proposed in the route relation, which causes dashed (rather than solid) lines to render in the Cycle Map and cyclosm layers. Proposed routes do appear in Cycle Map layer and cyclosm renderings (as dashed, not solid lines) but do not appear in Lonvia (cycling.waymarkedtrails.org) renderings.

See also

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