[OSM-talk] World wide coverage?

[Robert T Wyatt]

Mikel Maron wrote:
> If someone comes in and is interested in doing OSM for a particular US area, there should be a set of tools
> to import just the counties they want. For instance, I wanted a few SFBay counties imported for Where 2.0
> this year. Once imported, that data is going to be closely inspected. If there's a problem with the import
> script, that will quickly be iterated out, and a counties worth of bad data can be removed vis JOSM easily.
> 
> This is the kind of personal stewardship we have with GPS derived data, and that should be fostered for
> automated import as well.
> 
> I've added http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/WikiProject_United_States#Users_interested_in_the_United_States
> to kick off some community around this.

Signed up! Thanks! I'm new to OSM and only just starting to edit around
Austin, TX. I've been trying to learn how to do things. It *seems* to me
that the only editing option I have is JOSM since none of the slippy map
layers seem to contain anything in my region even though there have been
edits.

This is something I don't understand. Are there additional actions that
have to be taken in order to get edits via JOSM to show up on the slippy
map? Are these actions something that the contributors do or are
these actions by the site admins? Must they be requested or
are they automated? Thanks for insights.

===
Without really knowing the extent of what is currently accepted, I would
comment in regards to the tertiary road discussion that I think OSM
should accept number of lanes and lane width as well as road surface
material. Lane width is more important than the width of the road in my
estimation, but the width of the road can be derived from the number of
lanes and the lane width. It is the lane width that would best predict
safe travel speeds.

Is it important to know how the roads are striped? Can one keep abreast
of local lane striping crews and their contracts? Would one endeavour to
comment on the condition of the stripes without knowing when they might
be repainted? Hmmm, much more difficult I think. Knowing whether one has
eight, ten, or twelve feet of lane is more useful in my mind.

There should also be designations for whether hazardous cargo is allowed
on the road, hurricane evacuation routes, and all kinds of other things
like seasonal roads (the Dalton Hwy in Alaska comes to mind--one needs a
permit from the Governor's office to drive the road in winter). If
private roads are mapped, then they need to be designated as such. I've
seen roads that are originally cut by governments for utility lines, but
are maintained by the local land owner and have padlocks on access
gates. I'm thinking here of very large cattle ranches. USGS maps will
show these as "county" roads, but there is no indication that they are
accessible only to people who know the padlock combination. Certainly
this is an important attribute to record/contribute. I'm thinking that
access: restricted and another attribute indicating the type of
restriction (seasonal, padlock) and possibly contact URLs (for the
Governor's office) or phone numbers (for the ranch manager), could be
included. Yes, I really think that contact info needs to be present.

Best,
Robert