Hi Ryan!

I noticed that you mapped the bike lanes on the Interstate Avenue and the Denver Street as separate ways in this changeset. Generally, in OSM, bike lanes that are just painted on the road (or even physically separated by a small curb or buffer) are tagged using the cycleway=lane or cycleway=track tag directly on the main road. This helps to keep the map data simpler and more accurate. Separate ways are usually reserved for cycle tracks that are completely separate from the road infrastructure (e.g., bike paths in parks or those with their own distinct right-of-way).

In Portland, other bike lanes are also tagged this way rather than mapped as separate ways, to maintain consistency across the city's map data.

Additionally, mapping bike lanes both as separate ways and tagging them on the main road results in the lanes being mapped twice, which can be confusing and inaccurate. When bike lanes are mapped separately, the main road should be tagged with cycleway=use_sidepath. This indicates that cyclists should use the separate path, as riding on the main road is prohibited in such cases due to ORS 814.420 (Failure to use bicycle lane or path).

Also, if bike lanes are mapped separately, they need to be connected to the same intersecting streets as the main road. For example, the northbound bike lane on Denver Street should be connected to North Saratoga Street and North Liberty Street. Similarly, the eastbound lane on North Willamette Boulevard should connect to North Wayland Avenue, North Foss Avenue, North Hurst Avenue, etc. Without these connections, bike routing tools like Strava, Ride with GPS, and Komoot won't allow cyclists to make these turns because the tools don’t recognize that such turns are possible.

Another issue with separately mapped bike lanes is that they often don't have names, which can cause bike routing tools to use less detailed instructions. Instead of saying "turn left on Denver Street," they might just say "turn left," making the directions less clear for cyclists.

So that's why it's recommended to add the cycleway tag to the main road instead of mapping bike lanes separately.

There is a similar issue in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/152475058, where bike lanes on Rosa Parks and North Willamette were mapped separately.

Could you please consider removing those separate ways for bike lanes? Thanks for contributing to OSM! And please let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

Thank you,
Alex