[Tagging] cyclist profiles - was:Feature Proposal - RFC - value 'basic_network' - cycle_network?

[stevea]

On Dec 6, 2021, at 1:42 AM, Peter Elderson <pelderson at gmail.com> wrote:
> officially signposted as routes for cyclists, using destination oriented signing on official standardized guideposts, and standardized simple waymarks between the official guideposts.

OK, that’s clear enough to me, so thank you Peter:  these are “signposted as routes."  We have route=bicycle relations in OSM.  These aggregate together into networks, the icn/ncn/rcn/lcn conventions were a “rough version 1” which sort-of-worked for many (most? certainly not all) locations.  They may even work “just fine” in many locations (though I would say that using cycle_network with wisely chosen values really clarifies things here).  The cycle_network=* tag evolved to more specifically denote “which network?” for those route=bicycle relations which had multiple networks at any particular level (e.g. more than one “national bicycle network” or “regional bicycle network”).  The cycle_network tag has had what might be described as slow-to-moderate uptake in its usage around the world to do this denotation, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong or broken or a poorly-developed or documented tag, rather that it has been “not rapid in its uptake.”

These signs seem to denote something much, much closer to a network:type=node_network (destination-based, signposted at intersections…) than a “standard” route=bicycle.  (Indeed, I understand that the latter containing thousands and thousands of ways is unwieldy and difficult to maintain, to which I would agree is correct, because the choice of implementation is incorrect).

Can we put whatever “this” is into data structures (and concomitant tagging) which fits into the paradigm of “routes aggregating together into a network(s)” of a relational database?  Already?  Yet?  Please?  With wide understanding and consensus?  If it is such a tall order, by all means, take the time to design it well (starting with a concept and developing that).