[OSM-newbies] newbies Digest, Vol 25, Issue 38

[Heinrich McBean]

Donald,
 
Guyana Lands and Survey Commission’s maps are copyright.  I am not sure they would allow you to copy their maps but there is nothing stopping you from asking.  However, those maps would be useful in helping you understand how the roadway system is classified, the names of roads and the location of political boundaries.  For example unless it was renamed in the last 10 years, the Georgetown end of the coastal highway from Georgetown to Rosignol (note the spelling) is named Rupert Craig Highway.   I believe Rupert Craig was one of the first Guyanese highway engineers in what was then British Guiana.  Your mapping exercise could also be a history lesson on Guyana.  Rupert Craig Highway starts where Carifesta Avenue and Vlissengen Road meets.  By-the-way, the Public Library on Main Street, next to Bank of Guyana, is a great resource.  They would have copies of many, if not all, of the maps and you should probably consider spending a few hours there.  Many years ago I did a research paper on the history of roads in Guyana and the Georgetown Public Library was a great resource.  
 
 I have sent emails to two persons in Guyana.  I’ll let you know when I get a response and will set up a meeting with persons who may be able to provide you with some help.
 
 
Heinrich
 
 

 


Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:48:11 +2000
From: donaciano2000 at gmail.com
To: newbies at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [OSM-newbies] newbies Digest, Vol 25, Issue 38

That's a lot of good info in that post, thanks. :-)  I've heard of the government agency that does mapping and surveying, perhaps your friends work there. It's at the end of Hadfield near the zoo.  A friend here as told me they once offered to let him copy their data onto his Hard drive but he had to leave before he got a chance to do that.  I was planning to drop by sometime and seeing if I could get permission to use their data for OSM like the TIGER data was imported in the US and other countries in Europe.  What do you know about the compatibility between Guyana's government data and the public domain concept?  I've seen maps here with a copyright Guyana Lands and Surveys Commision, so there IS some form of copyright law in Guyana even though the newspapers claim otherwise.  ;-)  Perhaps we may have better results through your contacts than if I just randomly show up in their office.  :-)  

About Kaieteur Falls, I've heard of a fairly long road trip you can take there that stops at several villages along the way.  Is it basically the same as taking Intraserv to Lethem?  Ideally I could stop at a village a day or so long enough to get their major streets mapped and then move on.  What's the best way to do that?  

Oh and getting off the main roads.  :-)  My buddy in New Amsterdam flipped when he saw the GPS and actually made me sit in his truck all day as we went to Skeldon and many side roads, if you check out that GPX track you may notice us stopped in a spot over an hour or so, that's where we drove into a ditch backing up on a small road.  Does that qualify for an OSM mapping accident??  :-)  We had to hire a tractor to pull us out, I should add that to the wiki sometime.  I definitely plan more trips there in the future and hopefully I can find someone else who's interested in OSM and willing to get a GPS of their own.  I met a missionary who's spent around 15 years backpacking and jeep trailing all around the interior, he's still at it so I'm hoping I can figure out a way to get him involved.  

Thanks for the tips, let's see if we can get Guyana's Land and Survey's Commission involved in OSM somehow.  :-)
-DC





Claudius and Donald,

I grew up in Guyana and know the country very well.  When I first learned of OSM my first thoughts were about mapping Guyana's vast network of hinterland roads.  From what I have seen, Donald is doing some very useful mapping work in Guyana but he needs to think in context.  If Donald should get off the main road he would discover that No. 47 Village actually has several hundred houses.  It still has a smaller population that a US or UK town of similar land area, but No. 47 village has well defined political boundaries and in the mapping process those boundaries have to be respected.   It is also not "common" for every five or ten blocks to have its own village name. All Villages in Guyana have well defined and established geo-political boundaries.

With respect to the road network in Guyana Donald has to think about functionality.  I am a civil engineer and I have lived in the UK.  I can tell you that a motorway, although it is a multi-lane facility, it is not defined by the number of lanes but by its functionality.  Same as with the Interstate in the USA where I currently live.  Some sections of Interstate only have two lanes in each direction, while some US city streets may have 4 lanes in each direction.  That does not make the city street an Interstate highway.

Everything in Guyana is on a saller scale that he would be accustomed to and thus cannot be tagged using a scale that suits the USA or the larger European countries.  I can arrange for Donald to meet some local land surveyors and highway engineers who could be of much help in advising him on some of the issues that he has encountered.  By the way, Kitty and Campbell are two distinct and separate neighbourhoods (note the spelling) in Georgetown.  Within the City, incorporated villages are defined as neighbourhoods.  Thus the #44 bus does a loop from Downtown Georgetown through Campbellville and Kitty (or vice-versa) and back to Downtown Georgetown.  It is very much like a bus that goes from Manhattan to Queens via Brooklyn but on a much smaller scale.

And Donald, I hope you find time to visit Kaieteur Falls and to do a overland trip to Bartica or somes place further south to see the cable suspension bridge over the Issan, for example.  In Guyana, you have not done much travelling until you visit the "interior".  If you drink beer have a "Banks" for me.

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