Proposal:Bypass

Bypass
Proposal status:	Proposed (under way)
Proposed by:	Pavvv
Tagging:	bypass=* bypass:for=* bypass:name=* bypass:enclosing=*
Applies to:
Definition:	A bypass or ring road avoiding a place
Draft started:	2025-08-12
RFC start:	2025-08-13

Proposal

Create a tag for signifying that a road is a ring road or a bypass.

Rationale

Currently, the fact that a road is a bypass of a town is often incorrectly tagged as a name=* or a bit better but still not great as a description=*. This is why I think that it would be better to just have a separate tagging scheme to signify this fact.

The reason why I chose bypass=* to be the tag's name is because ring roads have to be a full ring while oftentimes they may not be fully built yet or it's just an important road bypassing a town that's not supposed to be a ring road.

Note that a road should only be tagged as such when it was designed to be a bypass for a place and was probably announced in press as such. Every road bypasses some place so don't go around adding it where it's not needed.

Tagging

A bypass road should be tagged as bypass=*, where the value is the type of bypass based on what kind of area it is bypassing. Some types are described in the Polish Wikipedia article. The recommended values include:

Value	Description
yes	The road is a bypass. Use a more specific value if possible.
core	Runs through the strict, historic city centre where the movement of cars is often prohibited.
centre	Runs through a town or city but bypasses its centre (also called downtown in American English). Note that when such a bypass exists, there usually also is a bigger bypass that allows to avoid driving through the city entirely.
urban	Runs along the outskirts of the city and serving the efficient inter-district and agglomeration traffic.
rural	Similar to urban but avoids a rural area.
regional	Passes outside a big urban agglomeration and serves long-distance transit.

The rest of the tags are:

Tag	Description
bypass:for=<name of place>	(recommended) Describes the name of town or village the road bypasses. Use semicolons for multiple places.
bypass:name=*	(optional) The name of the bypass or ring road that is commonly used.
bypass:enclosing=yes/no	(recomended) Describes whether the bypass is a ring road a.k.a. it is fully finished allowing to bypass the place from each side.

Such tags should be used on ways for minor bypasses or route=road relations when the bypass is important and extra info about it (such as distance=*, wikipedia=*, website=*, etc.) could be added.

Examples

Bypass name	OSM ID	Tagging	Note
Berlin Beltway (Berliner Ring)	5485500 5485500	bypass=regional bypass:for=Berlin name=Berliner Ring bypass:enclosing=yes	For most relations name=* is enough.
Wrocław Downtown Bypass	17222177 17222177	bypass=centre bypass:for=Wrocław name=Obwodnica Śródmiejska Wrocławia bypass:enclosing=no	The ring road has not been fully built yet.
Wrocław Motorway Bypass	2107913 2107913	bypass=urban bypass:for=Wrocław name=Autostrada A8 bypass:name=Autostradowa Obwodnica Wrocławia	Here the bypass name is the other name for the motorway, hence both name=* and bypass:name=*. Not designed to be a full ring, so bypass:enclosing=no isn't necessary.
I Krakow Beltway	94092847 94092847 No relation exists as of yet, so a minimap will do.	bypass=core bypass:for=Kraków bypass:name=I Obwodnica Krakowa bypass:enclosing=yes
Zawiercie and Poręba Bypass	1088088495 1088088495	bypass=urban bypass:for=Zawiercie;Poręba	The name would just be "Zawiercie and Poręba Bypass" in Polish which can be created automatically so it's more of a description. It's also not used very much as a name which is why it doesn't need to be tagged.
Maciejowa Bypass	686064247 686064247	bypass=rural bypass:for=Maciejowa

Pages affected

Descriptions about roads being able to be tagged as a bypass could be added to various pages for highways or road routes.

External discussions

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/rfc-feature-proposal-bypass/134121

Comments

Please comment on the discussion page.