[Talk-us] Fwd: USBRS WikiProject seeks volunteer mappers

[Minh Nguyen]

On 2014-06-03 11:46, Simon Poole wrote:
> Am 03.06.2014 17:48, schrieb Mike N:
>>> Further the area not being surveyed implies that all the value add that
>>> we can offer a cyclist is not there (surface, lanes, shoulders etc).
>>
>>   Blocking bike routes until "everything is surveyed" is not realistic
>> - we'd need to map every parking spot with a potential car door zone,
>> every storm drain that may cause a road hazard, as well as every road
>> width in addition to the surface, lanes and shoulders.   Blocking bike
>> routes only ensures that TIGER deserts remain as deserts for any
>> number of years until someone randomly happens to take interest, if
>> ever. Having a bike route will motivate people to start with armchair
>> improvements and follow with incremental improvements to the roads
>> that the bike route cover.
>>
> I was looking at this the other way around: these routes are a good
> opportunity to motivate people out there and get them to survey the
> length of the route in person.
>
> Instead of yet another armchair mapping exercise.
>
> Naturally not requiring everything to be perfect, but at least it would
> be better than pure armchair mapping and more aligned with why bicycle
> routes exist in the first place. The handful of approved routes I looked
> at don't seem to be particularly long (aka at most  couple of 100 miles)
> and could easily be surveyed by a dozen or two mappers without undue
> effort and completed in the upcoming months.
>
> And provide some show casing of why OSM is better, instead of worse.
>
> Simon
>

Naturally, we should emphasize quality coverage of the route 
infrastructure (trails, roads, parking). Signage is almost never the 
interesting thing about a bike route. To a cyclist, a sign may just be 
another landmark like a water tower or power line.

Yet routes are absolutely necessary to make sense of the very fragmented 
bike infrastructure in this country. Without USBRs and the occasional 
state bike route, our cycle map would be like the uninterrupted sea of 
highway=residential just after the TIGER import. Route relations don't 
necessarily indicate bikeability anyways. Bikeability is indicated by 
the surface tag and so on. Route relations indicate notability.

By the way, even if I've armchair tagged an USBR in Ohio, many of the 
state's trails have already been ground surveyed by OSM mappers. That's 
how I got any trails mapped way back before Bing imagery came along. So 
it isn't pure armchair mapping in the first place. If anyone's 
interested in double-checking our work, USBR 50 in Ohio is 313.3 miles 
long. The western half mostly follows rail trails, so it's very flat and 
straight. The other half, not so much.

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us