[OSM-talk] Canada road data available?

[Paul Fox]

jason wrote:
 > Steve Chilton wrote:
 > > Would someone care to investigate this note that appears on the Ogle
 > > Earth blog today:
 > > --------------------------------
 > > Canada roads, for free: Peter Rukavina notes that Canada's National Road
 > > Network is now available as free download as KML, ESRI Shapefile, and
 > > GML. Peter adds:
 > > For anyone interested in GIS, map-hacking and similar pursuits, the NRN
 > > is an amazing dataset. That it's made freely available for any use is a
 ...
 > We've started the initial prep work in the mean time, and there is a 
 > draft version of the converter tool that will turn the GML they provide 
 > into OSM completed, its available in the SVN if anyone wants to take a 
 ...
 > There is one huge issue thats still outstanding however, pretty much 
 > while the road network data is there, its only the roads. There are no 
 > names for anything below a primary highway for most of the country at 
 > this point (although it is supposedly being worked on). They have just 


there's another dataset available, the RNF (Road Network File)
dataset, which includes names down to small street level.  i
don't know how close the license is between the two, not having
looked at both.  when i inquired as to the differences, i was
told that the geobase (National Road Network) data was more
spatially accurate, and a "lot more up to date" than the Stats
Canada (RNF data).

but, like the NRN data, the RNF data is roads only -- no water,
no anything else.  i've also noticed anomolies in the shape data
that i haven't tracked down, though those might be a rendering
issue in RoadMap.

the RNF data is here:
     http://geodepot.statcan.ca/Diss/2006Dissemination/Data/FRR_RNF_e.cfm?language=E&format=A
it's in shapefile format.

the RoadMap project uses the RNF data -- i didn't learn of the
NRN data until later.

can i ask if there's a specific reason you're working on converting
the GML version of their data, and not the shapefile version?  is
that based on technical merits?

paul
p.s. i'm the current maintainer of RoadMap (http://roadmap.sourceforge.net)
p.p.s. i'm very new to OSM.
 
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 40.6 degrees)