[Tagging] How to tag recreational route with multiple route types?

[stevea]

It seems a bit tangential to the original thread topic, but "still related enough:"  I have taken the approach of adding a name=* tag to a segment of trail (travel mode isn't important) when there truly is one.  Call this "infrastructure tagging" as opposed to "route tagging," where a relation with a mode (or more than one) is created.  And, blushingly, I'll admit to having coined a couple of these names myself, but they are inspired by being an active "trail user" here.  Besides, my coinage is typical with the thematics of other trails in the area, especially as "that always has been an officially unnamed trail, but that's what everybody seems to call it" prevails with those who frequently use it.  I suppose "official" names have to come from somewhere, don't they?!

A name for the "infrastructure" of the trail (highway, track, path...):  fine and dandy.  Additional tags on the way like horse=designated, bicycle=no, foot=yes... are also correct additions when I know those, too.  But I reserve the act of additionally putting into our map a route relation for when either signage says so or when the overwhelming "local parlance" associates a "full, named, used-by-that-mode named trail."  I may not be 100% perfectly consistent in my mapping with that attitude, but the great majority of the time, yes.

So, "infrastructure tagging," absolutely, we all must do this.  Whether to "route tag" (with a relation, for a particular mode, or if it is correct / more appropriate to use semicolon notation, which I have never done, but could, if it isn't overly complex and doesn't shoehorn the data model overtly), well, "route tagging" has more subtle aspects and can go in at least a couple of different directions:  whether to do so or not, whether to combine modes, whether to coin a name, especially if the names differ from the infrastructure element name=* tags, etc.

I say it a lot:  "map your best, tag your best, wiki your best."  (Not necessarily in that order).  And "infrastructure tagging" and "route tagging" truly are two different things.

SteveA