[Talk-us] OSM US Trails Working Group

[Mike Thompson]

In OSM we map what is actually on the ground, not what someone would like
to be on the ground.  We are like "spatial journalists", and like
journalists, we report (map) the facts (does the US Government try to tell
the NY Times what to publish? Only in extreme circumstances.).  There will
always be those who claim that the "facts are dangerous" and therefore
should not be reported, and I am sure one can find isolated cases where
this is true (this is not limited to trails or OSM, it seems that every few
months there is a story of someone in their Honda Civic (e.g.) taking a
"shortcut" that appears on their navigation app as a 4x4 road that only a
rock crawler could traverse - no substitute for common sense).   But more
often than not, the danger is to the particular group that desires these
facts be suppressed.

If there really is a problem, land managers can post signs "no off trail
use", "not a trail", etc., and enforce such.

I have talked to a number of search and rescue people that actually use OSM
because it does contain so called "social trails."  It may also help legal
land users remain safe.  A few years ago there were a number of deaths on
Capitol Peak in Colorado because hikers had gotten off route.  I and
another mapper added the "trail" to the peak to OSM (note, not NPS land).

In addition, my experience with the NPS trail data is that it is often in
error, and they refuse to fix it, and even acknowledge that it could be
wrong.

Finally, removing this valuable content from OSM will not achieve the ends
the NPS and others want to achieve as it appears independently in a number
of apps.

Mike


On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 10:30 AM Zeke Farwell <ezekielf at gmail.com> wrote:

> Recently a number of us attended the "Mappy Hour" presentation "Trails in
> OpenStreetMap <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXXGkBVJK-o>" by Keri
> Nelson of the National Park Service.  Keri described the damages our public
> land managers are seeing from visitors following informal/social trails and
> non-trail routes shown on popular hiking maps that use OpenStreetMap data
> such as AllTrails, CalTopo, and GaiaGPS.
>
> This has initiated a public discussion on the OSM US slack
> <https://slack.openstreetmap.us/>  #trails channel
> <https://osmus.slack.com/archives/C1US5SFUH> on how to better support
> responsible recreation through OpenStreetMap.  OSM US is also forming a
> trails working group focused on these issues.  The group is made up of OSM
> mappers, trail map providers, and land managers.  The first meeting is next
> Wednesday 10/13.  Anyone who is interested in helping resolve these issues
> is welcome to join the discussion on slack
> <https://slack.openstreetmap.us/>, and/or contact Maggie Crawley
> <maggie at openstreetmap.us> to participate in the working group meetings.
> We have also started a United States Trail Access wiki page
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Trail_Access_Project>
> to document this effort.
>
> --
> Zeke Farwell
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-us mailing list
> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
>
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