[OSM-dev] North America gone in geofabrik and tagwatch

[Mike N.]

> fewer people interested in downloading what is little more than
> slightly rehashed versions of giant public-domain datasets (TIGER, NHD
> etc).

  I would say the road network has progressed well beyond the original TIGER 
data that they are now almost unrelated to each other for routing purposes. 
Sure, some roads have not been "touched", but many are usable for routing. 
Many counties have had all roads "stitched together" at the county borders.

> Does anyone have a list of services (or maps etc) which don't cover
> North America?

  This map: Hike / Horse trail map offers many services together, but is 
limited to part of Europe.   Other hiking maps now cover North America, but 
do not include as many services together (route planning, downloads, etc). 
http://topo.openstreetmap.de/

  Routing: http://www.openrouteservice.org/ - includes a workable pedestrian 
routing.   But eventually routing may arrive on the main OpenStreetMap 
server.

  I don't necessarily expect that the above sites should offer world-wide 
service if their resources are limited.

>I know that we managed to expand keepright to cover NA
> in October 2009, and so I'm especially disheartened to see things
> sliding in the other direction.

  I've been surprised at the difficulties of spiking *any* interest in my 
region - "do it yourself" services that must be created by the possible end 
user are one obstacle.