[OSM-talk] Google Maps comparison

[Dair Grant]

Richard George wrote:

>The routing and naming of that road are somewhat dubious on OSM.
>http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22colwell+gardens%22+haywards+
>heath suggests that this name/street exists. A similar search for
>'"Wellswood Road", Haywards Heath' comes up effectively blank.

Colwell Gardens does exist, but the right-hand section is now 
"Wellswood" (no Road). There's a picture of the signs at:

     <http://www.flickr.com/photos/dair/1544472322>
     <http://www.flickr.com/photos/dair/1425410090>


>For this street to have the route now shown, a number of houses
>would have to have been demolished since the aerial photo was taken;
>this is possible but seems unlikely. The 'cap' roads shown in OSM
>are also something of a conjecture - one can be seen to exist on the
>satellite data but the other is a bit of a stretch.
>
>This road, to be honest, looks like an OSM easter egg.

The layout on the ground is as per OSM. Here are some photos:

     <http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=22132366%40N00&q=wellswood&m=tags>

The aerial photos are at least 4 years old; a planning 
application to demolish the old street was submitted in 2003.

I think this shows how important presentation is; Google have a 
nice UI for interacting with the map, a good looking renderer, 
high-res aerial photos, etc, so it's natural to assume that what 
you're seeing is error-free.


>Neither map shows the road (which may be private) between St
>Edmund's Road and Kent Road.

Well spotted, I've collected a trace from there and updated the 
map (it's a service road leading to some lock-ups for those houses).


>The roundabout (down by the postbox) at the bottom of these maps is
>shown vastly too large by google, and entirely missing in OSM.

The roundabout was actually present in OSM, but I forgot the 
highway tag so it wasn't being rendered. Also fixed. :-)


-dair
___________________________________________________
dair at refnum.com    http://www.deathvalleycycle.com/