[OSM-newbies] Working on Manhattan

[Jeremy Adams]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <topo at joelertola.com>
To: <newbies at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 2:54 PM
Subject: [OSM-newbies] Working on Manhattan


> Hi all,
>
> I just discovered openstreetmap last week. I live in New York city and
> just to get my feet wet I took my GPS over to Union Square park and
> tried to map it. The gps track is very bad, (I guess because of all
> the tall buildings around the park,) but I did manage to draw the park
> and the foot paths in it. I was pleased to see my additions today:
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=40.73859&lon=-73.99056&zoom=16
>
> Currently most of the streets in Manhattan are marked as residential.
> So I started taging the major streets in Manhattan as primary or
> Secondary. I am just using my general knowledge of the city to
> determine this. Is that OK?

Yes, the general road types are explained on the wiki 
(wiki.openstreetmap.org).  There's a tagging
page that explains what all of the various tags for nodes/ways mean.

>
> I would also like to mark the one way streets with their direction,
> but so far, I don't know how to do this.

Add the oneway key to the way (oneway=yes).  Be sure to check the direction 
of the way to make sure the oneway is in the correct direction.  This is 
also explained on the tagging page.

>
> I also fixed the junction of 5th avenue and Broadway at 24th street. I
> got it to the point where it looks good but I am not sure the streets
> nodes connect properly. How can I tell if two points that overlap are
> joined together properly?

The ways should be joined via one node, not simply overlapping.  If you grab 
the node in Potlach and move it, both ways should move with it.

>
> I have deleted two small streets that do not exist, but I had a hard
> time figuring out how to do it. I am using the Potlatch editor. If I
> select a line segment an hit delete nothing happens. So what I have
> been doing is adding a point in the center of the segment I want to
> delete, then splitting the segment at that point, then selecting the
> end points at the split and then deleting. This seems to work but I
> doubt if it is the recommended method.

In Potlach shift + delete will delete a way.  This prevents accidents.  :)

> I also would like to redraw the West Side highway as a double lane
> divided highway with proper connections to the city streets but, being
> such a newbie, I hesitate to make such a major change. Is it ok if I
> work on the highway in my neighborhood and leave the uptown part of
> the highway for someone else?

Take some time and get comfortable with Potlach and then if no one else has 
done it, go for it.  Tiger drew most double lane roads as a single way, so 
there's lots of them out there to fix.
Check an area that someone else has done to see how it should work. 
Remember that cross streets need to be connected to both ways.  Each side 
should also be labeled oneway where appropriate.

> Any advice would be appreciated.
>
> -Joe Lertola
>
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