Having just skimmed over the US route relations thread, I notice that this tagging is in conflict with what is currently done in the US with cycle networks. There the US community seems to have settled on cycle_network for the network description and leaving network=[inrl]cn untouched.
If we overhaul the network tag (and to repeat myself, I’m very much in favour of that) can we go for one solution that works for all route relations the same? Apart from using the same tag for all route types, this would also mean that we get rid of scope values that encode the route type.
In that sense, I’d prefer Quincy’s approach over what happens with the cycle networks. It’s in line what is currently happening with road networks. Only, [inlr]wn needs to be swapped for something along the lines of local/regional/national/global.
Personally I also don’t see a conflict with the values node_network and base_network used in network:type. These kind of networks are just a special form of local to me. I hear that in the Netherlands (or was it Belgium?), there are plans to extend the (local) node network with “national nodes” to indicate long-distance connections. But these would need to be modeled as superroutes anyway, which would make them clearly distinguishable.