[Talk-us] Importing Virginia road centerlines

[Mike N]

> I'm totally new to importing, so I first wanted to see if anyone else
> is interested in this project, though I am willing to take the time to
> learn the process myself. Is the process used for importing the
> Canadian database [1] the best method for doing this?

   The process for the Canadian database is best used only for adding 
new roads that don't exist in the OSM database.  As part of the upload 
process, plan on stitching them into existing roads, perhaps using JOSM.

   It would also be handy to be able to project the improved geometry 
onto existing roads of the same name, while preserving attributes and 
driveway / footpath / bridges that have already been added to the OSM 
data.    That will preserve user's contributions and history.  This 
would require some new, yet-to-be developed tool to work directly with 
OSM data.  There is much interest in this because of the TIGER 2010 data 
and Arkansas state data sets.   It is not certain when there will be 
developer resources to develop such a tool.

   The limitation of Roadmatcher is that it works only with shapefiles, 
thus OSM attributes are lost when exporting to shapefiles.