OpenStreetMap
I’ve heard some debate on the mailing lists about whether importing TIGER census maps into the US was a good idea. The con argument is people look at the map and figure it’s good enough. The pro side is it put a lot of useful data in place.
Unfortunately, the quality of the TIGER data needs some improvement. For one thing, the highway= tag does not cover much ground between residential and motorway. There are lots of preferred roads, especially away from the cities, and you can’t just look at a TIGER map and know which one to take.
I’ve been applying the highway=tertiary tag to lots of the backroads in Oregon. One thing I particularly like finding are roads that have been re-routed (which is a really neat thing to look for on old maps). Take a look at the underlying Bing! image and see how Seven Mile Hill Road used to take a bit of a meander to the south.
Discussion
Comment from Baloo Uriza on 29 June 2012 at 20:04
Generally speaking that should be OK for county and the main forest service routes. Secondary might be a better baseline if it’s a state highway.
Comment from Tom Layo on 1 July 2012 at 13:23
At this point in the US map, the tag is less important than the road/feature being correctly placed on the map. While the map does look deceptively good only from a high zoom, the TIGER data is a net improvement. It would take many years for users to drive or bike every road to name streets, as already done by TIGER. And I grudgingly admit that most of the data regarding naming is good, and is now available to be fixed from a user anywhere.