Santa Clara County, California/Cycling routes

Numbered routes (lcn)

These are in a relation with network=lcn where members of underlying infrastructure are often bike lanes tagged with cycleway=lane (Class II), though they may also be cycleway=shared_lanes (Class III) or dedicated highway=cycleways (Class I).

As these primarily came from the 2008 Plan and the 2018 plan supersedes that, it is possible some or many of these routes with numbered network=lcn values are obsolete. (It is reported that lcn 11 is extant, with signs on-the-ground). Apparent correct improvements to OSM are to "integrate" newer CCBC and SHC concepts into OSM's data, perhaps or somewhat replacing the routes in this table, as well as documenting (in similar table form) the actual signed on-the-ground routes extant as of 2019 and going forward. This may be helpful: it is an interactive map which when clicked shows the route numbers. Unknown is if those route numbers represent existing routes (as expressed into the network=lcn namespace and cycle_network=US:CA:SC or are "simply route numbers for CCBCs" (which don't fit into OSM's hierarchies in a particular place, but we might find one or make one). This frustrates route harmonizations among tables below. It is acknowledged that the CCBC network "includes segments that don't currently have bikeways and segments that need improvement to provide high-quality, low-stress bicycling." That is sufficient to disqualify such a route from a local cycleway network (in this author's opinion).

However, in very early stages, these appear to be integrating. The newer numbering protocol (extant now, 2019) includes 7 Mary/Old Highway 9 Corridor 10 UPRR Trail 12 South of I-280/Williams/Moorpark/Alma Corridor 14 Blossom Hill Branham to Saratoga Corridor 16 Blossom Hill 24 Blaney/Sunnyvale East Channel Corridor 407 Monterey Highway CCBC, Llagas Trail-Little Llagas Trail to Coyote Lake 411 Coyote Creek Trail CCBC 413 Guadalupe River/Creek Trail/Los Alamitos Trail CCBC 414 Los Gatos Creek Trail CCBC and many others. It seems best to batch these up, consider many things and only upload them to OSM as they are correct and harmonize with existing data. A suggestion is to use old_ref for a while during a transition. Certain spreadsheet construction begins, not much more beyond that. In short, a slow conversion of lcn route numbers may be underway (perhaps towards the 2018 CCBC numbers), that is in its early stages now (June, 2019).

It makes sense to show tables of both. First is the 2008 plan numbering as expressed as lcn routes in OSM, circa early 2010s (to now, 2019; these routes remain in OSM as lcn numbered route relations). Second is an early prototype of Priority CCBCs (NOT exhaustive, early construction).

And the CCBC planning corridors (these are not, strictly speaking, routes, they are planning corridors totalling about 1000 miles). Again, this table is incomplete and early. No harmonization is taking place right now (2019-Q2), only gathering of data, namely, the identification of CCBSs as they were designated in 2018 and tabling them here. A complete list is appreciated; please complete the table, THEN perhaps we modify OSM lcn route relation data. One method is to leave the existing ref=* alone, another is to migrate it to old_ref=*. We might keep ref=* on routes which have MUTCD M1-8a numbered signs on-the-ground, or those might more properly belong in the table above, meant to depict actual signed routes.

Trails (rcn and lcn)

According to the 2008 CBP, Trail routes are categorized into a hierarchy of three levels. These are:

• Regional Trails (T-R#): that are of national, state, or regional recreation significance and extend beyond the borders of Santa Clara County;
• Sub-Regional Trails (T-S#): that provide regional recreation and transportation benefits by providing continuity between cities and convenient, long-distance trail loop opportunities that link two or more Regional Trails; and
• Connector Trails (T##): that provide convenient means of access from urban areas to the trail network of Regional and Sub-regional Trails or that connect County Parks.

So, "Regional Trails" (T-R#) get network=rcn and "Connector Trails" (T##) get network=lcn. As for "Sub-Regional Trails" (T-S#) being better-tagged with network=rcn or network=lcn, the Guadalupe River Trail (T-S3) was tagged with network=rcn and ref=GRT, due to its length, connectivity to other regional cycleways and proximity to the high-density urban core of Downtown San Jose. This led to all "Sub-Regional Trails" (T-S#) being tagged network=rcn and the following regional conventions:
• the network=rcn namespace is used with a more "regional" naming style on longer, more prominent trails such as "San Francisco Bay" Trail in a form similar to ref=SFB (three-letter acronym), and
• the network=lcn namespace is used with the Santa Clara County numbering protocol on routes of the form ref=T## (but not ref=T-R# and ref=T-S#, as these get "promoted to regional.")
Note that Cycle Map layer allows a maximum of three alphanumeric characters in a ref=* tag, so consider deleting hyphens in routes named T-S# in ref=* tags when these are lcn=*. However, as a three-character acronym from the Trail name is the style for a ref=* tag on regional routes, there is no hyphen to delete, yet we wish to not delete the local protocol route number from OSM, either. This leads to another convention:
• appropriately add tag alt_ref=T-R# or alt_ref=T-S# to "promoted to regional" network=rcn routes. For example, Santa Clara County portions of San Francisco Bay Trail are tagged network=rcn + ref=SFB, yet also contain tag alt_ref=T-R4. This allows OSM tagging to capture Santa Clara County's local protocol route number on a route tagged regional (as the local number does not display in Cycle Map layer).

Many regional trails from the 2008 CBP were in early planning stages. For example, the "de Anza Trail" (dAT) portion was only an initial component of T-R1 (a much longer project) and both Monterey-Yosemite State Trail and Benito-Clara Trail lacked sufficient geographical data to enter into OSM.

Expressways (lcn)

Currently, these are entered as network=lcn though they might be promoted to network=rcn at some point in the future.

Sunnyvale Cycle Routes (lcn)