[Tagging] Tagging of State Parks in the US

Clifford Snow clifford at snowandsnow.us
Tue Aug 6 21:49:40 UTC 2019


I've been following this thread but haven't chimed in yet. I wanted to talk
to someone that works in State Parks. I contact Neil Lasley with Washington
State Parks and asked him his impression of the discussion and how the
state view parks.

Here is what he had to say.

Good to hear from you! I can provide you with an explanation and some
reference literature that points to WACs and RCWs to shed some more light
on this. (RCW are state laws and WACs are administrative codes)



In a nutshell though--tagging them as *protected areas* sounds like a good
idea to me---I support it. I read Kevin Kenny’s reasoning behind wanting to
do that, and like he said—while state parks may not be nature-protected
areas across the board (some of them are highly developed and definitely
aimed more towards public recreation opportunities, and some of them are
protected for cultural/historic significance), they are all, in a sense,
community-protected areas.



The state’s definition of a state park is…

*State Park: *Land generally greater than 10 acres in size, managed to
protect and conserve significant scenic, natural and cultural features and
to provide public access, facilities, or programs that through
recreational, educational, and interpretive experiences connect visitors
with those features.

I’m probably getting out into the weeds here, but I think it’s worth
mentioning that there are also *state park properties*…

*State Park Properties:* Lands owned by the agency that are being held for
future development (and lack any real infrastructure).

A lot of mapping platforms (Google Maps) incorrectly label *State Park
Properties* as full-blown *State Parks,* which confuses the public and is
something we hear about often. (We’ve worked with Google several times to
correct this, but they’re very slow to act). Regardless of how State Park
Properties are labeled, I think tagging them as protected areas also makes
sense.

A couple of things jumped out at me. First that parks can have a number of
uses from recreation to cultural giving possible different classifications
to the park. Second, I am aware of the park holdings but had never added
them to OSM. But that might be another classification.

Best,
Clifford
-- 
@osm_washington
www.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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