[Talk-us] Completing the Appalachian Trail relation

[Josh Doe]

I recently hiked a very small section of the Appalachian Trail, and
was shocked to see the section hadn't been mapped yet in OSM. Looking
at what's in the relation, only 2689 km of the 3504 km trail are
mapped. Granted, there's very likely some sections that have been
mapped but not added to the relation.

Here is the super relation for the AT:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/156553

Here's a table showing the length in each state compared to that
stated in Wikipedia. Some of the differences likely result from
sections of the AT that follow the border between states.

State, Relation ID, Length (OSM RA), Length (Wikipedia)
Maine, 2007932, 409.8, 452.9
New Hampshire, 2007646, 230.4, 258.9
Vermont, 392991, 199.8, 241.1
Massachusetts, 2991960, 8.3, 145.2
Connecticut, N/A, 0, 83
New York, 2007688, 78.4, 142.3
New Jersey, 446370, 19.4, 116.2
Pennsylvania, 394916, 363.3, 369.5
Maryland, 2007644, 60.6, 65.8
West Virginia, 2007973, 4.5, 6
Virginia, 2007649, 407, 886
Tennessee, 2007647, 539.8, 463.3
North Carolina, 2007645, 230.5, 153.7
Georgia, 2007643, 137.2, 120

Clearly there's more work to be done. I'm going to try and work on the
Virginia portion as I have time. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy
provides centerline Shapefiles which seem to be compatible with the
OSM license (liability disclaimer, a mention of citation in the
agreement according to what is stated in the metadata, which for the
centerline is nothing):
http://www.appalachiantrail.org/about-the-trail/mapping-gis-data/mapping-gis-data-download-agreement

Anyone else interested in getting this relation complete in the next few months?

-Josh