OpenStreetMap

Donald Allwright's Diary Comments

Diary Comments added by Donald Allwright

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Peru's import could get some love

I did some GPS mapping in Arequipa 3 years ago, the Telecom IP imports seem simply to ignore any data that are already there. I am here on the ground with a GPS available to add points of interest etc., but have somewhat lost the will to live with this import. The person who has done it has done the easy bit, then given up as far as I can tell. If I'm going to armchair map it really doesn't matter where in the world I do it - I really enjoyed doing all the rivers and lakes of Peru from satellite imagery (Yahoo), maybe I'll find another country that needs some armchair love and do that.

The Power!

With the rise in the number of grid-connected photovoltaic installations due to the new feed-in-tariff in the UK, should these also be added? There is mention of them on the wiki page but this specific issue is not addressed. This information will no doubt be of interest to a niche market but (a) is unlikely to be complete as not all installations will be visible from a public highway, and (b) may raise specific privacy concerns as they are usually located on private houses.

CTC/Cyclenation Cycle Campaigners' Conference

You have too many 'w's - correct link is www.cyclenation.org.uk.

Cambridgeshire (mis-)guided busway and cycle path

Clarification from Bob Menzies of Cambridge County Council that the cycle path, although complete, is part of the construction site and therefore not officially open. The contractors have a responsibility to cover the signs up, so as not to mislead people into using it inadvertently (my guess is that they aren't that bothered with enforcing it). The exception is the public footpath between Oakington and Park Lane (Histon) which until then is still a public footpath. so is accessible to pedestrians but of course not cyclists or horse riders.

The Cambridge County Council website states:
"BAM Nuttall, who are building The Busway, plan to hand over the track between St Ives and Cambridge at the end of October 2009. The Busway will open within one month of the handover.".

So not long to go (assuming no more delays of course!) but until then it is officially highway=construction, construction=cycleway. Will update ASAP.

Cambridgeshire (mis-)guided busway and cycle path

There were no barriers to the cycle route at Swavesey, I think there may have been some on the busway though. If I manage to get out there at the weekend I'll take a photograph of the area, including the signs.

Cambridgeshire (mis-)guided busway and cycle path

Thanks for the information David, I wasn't aware of the current status as it has changed from the original schedule and I've not kept up to date, other than knowing that the buses hadn't yet started running.

You raise an interesting point about trespassing. I was motivated to do the survey after seeing other cyclists on the route, so if it was trespassing then (a) I'm not alone, (b) there is no clear indication on the ground that this is the case, and (c) it raises an interesting question. If I come across a route which is clearly marked as a cycle route - which this is - then is it not a fair assumption that it is a public right of way and that I'm allowed on it? After all, OSM is about mapping what we see on the ground, which in this case includes such signs in full view. I'd presume that if it's still technically private then these signs should not be there (or at least should be covered up, as you often see at construction sites on motorways for example). There were clear signs that you should keep off the guideway itself at the eastern end. What's more, some of it (between Park Lane (Histon) and Oakington in particular) was previously a right of way in any case, and I didn't see any signs stating that the right of way had been temporarily suspended due to construction works (although previously this was only a public footpath which cycles were not allowed on, if I remember correctly).

Rural footpaths: Public Rights of Way

With respect to the issue of paths that 'disappear' and 'reappear' where it is unclear where to go for a section of the path, I wondered if a pragmatic solution to this is to map a straight line between the known reference points of the path, but add a tag to that section (extrapolated=yes?) to indicate that the exact location is not clear from evidence on the ground. That way, any routing algorithms will still be able to use the data in a meaningful way, but renderers can choose not to render data with this tag.

For that matter, this issue doesn't just apply to paths. I used my GPS to log some main roads in Peru, and there are a few sections where I know there is a road but I didn't manage to get a log for whatever reason. As these roads are the only access to some of the towns in the area it's really important for routers to know that it's a valid route, even if the exact trajectory of the road between two points is not known.

Soham and Isleham, Cambridgeshire

I saw there was a new estate taking shape in the Aspen Way area, but the last time I visited I didn't have time to map more than a few stubs on the edge. As for Brewhouse Lane I honestly can't remember now - another one for my list of places to check.

Lion Mill was in the area between Clay Street, Mill Drove and Lode Close:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.3318&lon=0.33443&zoom=17&layers=B000FTF

I think the housing development may be complete now - I drove past it at night but didn't attempt to map it, but as it's a small area I don't think it's more than a handful of residential streets.

Soham and Isleham, Cambridgeshire

Nice work!

My friend in Soham has just pointed out that the former Lion Mill site is now a new housing estate within the area that I previously surveyed, so also needs adding. Should take no more than about 15 minutes to survey on foot as it's pretty small, I'll make a point of doing this next time I visit.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk - Abbotsford Park area, plus Rougham, Hessett and part of Thurston

Nice work, good to see the parts that I cycled past last year finally on the map! I managed to get a small amount of mapping done in Soham at the weekend. Essentially there is still a large new estate in the north which needs mapping and the whole of the southern end of the town. Probably one long or two short sessions should do it. Now the weather is better I hope to get it done in the next month or so.

Longstanton by-pass, Cambridgeshire

That's odd - I did my usual Monday morning comparison of Mapnik and Osmarender to see the differences, and there were none - it looks as if it's already rendered in Mapnik, despite a Wednesday not yet having passed since the data were added. Any idea why? Nice work though.

Royston (north-east), Hertfordshire

I was wondering what had happened there, I'd checked back from time to time to see if it had been added but had also concluded that the person had lost interest. Still, all sorted now and looks good.

Ely to Waterbeach along the rivers Ouse & Cam

Hi Mark,
Thanks for the tip about the path from Long Drive/Joist fen to the river, I'll check that out sometime when I try and map the lakes properly. Looks like there might actually be a few tracks from Long Drove in that direction, but not sure how many of them are navigable as far as the river.

You're a unicyclist too?!!!! I've never really got to do much off-road as my skills haven't really got good enough, but I must admit I hadn't thought of using it to do mapping!

Cheers,
Donald

Mapping rural areas

OK to start the ball rolling I've added initial county pages on the wiki for Devon, Dorset and Somerset. Still a lot of detail to add, and I haven't looked up any lists of towns to add. That's a job for a long winter's evening!

Mapping rural areas

I think the problem will to a large extent remain until a local person in the area gets interested and starts doing 'real' mapping using a GPS. I am unfortunate (if you see what I mean) to live in an area with a lot of mappers , which means my home patch is very well covered and I have to travel quite a way to get rich pickings. I grew up in the area a little to the east of where you're looking and have added a few of the roads I know based on NPE maps, but the problem remains.

I wonder if there's scope here for organising 'out of region' mapping parties, to cover towns/villages in such areas - and trying to publicise it locally as much as possible. The main aim of such a party would be to get locals interested, and give them a bit of a head start by letting them see how it's done, as opposed to actually getting blanket coverage of the region. However I'm not really an expert in publicity matters, so don't know how best to go about this. Having been to the Bury St. Edmunds mapping party in August, I would love to see a similar event in say Yeovil (near where I grew up and which I know well) which is a similar sized town and notable for its lack of detail in OSM.

Wye Valley, Tintern, Chepstow

Ah, it certainly looked like the area had received some dedicated attention, compared to the English side of the Wye which is more or less a white hole here. My contribution was pretty small really, but so enjoyable that I'm tempted to go back and do more. I seem to be turning into more of a rural mapper these days, which maybe is a good thing as urban areas will get filled in pretty quickly. Having said that, I'm tempted to go and finish off more of Bury St. Edmunds, as it was 'my' sector that was left with the largest proportion unmapped back in August!

Somersham again - still bigger than I expected

Nice work! I was also out Saturday morning, and now have the Ouse valley way as far as Earith. Also took in a few other footpaths and bridleways. Progress seems painfully slow when walking compared to cycling, but it's the only way to do footpaths accurately. Also tweaked the B1050 just south-east of Earith as it wasn't very accurate, and tagged the lock underneath it road, although it doesn't seem to render at all.

The Water has to be on the right!

I just remember that my right boot has a split in it*, so I always have a wet right foot as it's in the water as I walk round the lake/coast/riverbank.

(*Actually, so does my left boot now, so I may find it harder to remember in future!).

Would like to start - Need a handset

I have recently bought a Garmin etrex Legend HCX, and am finding it to be excellent. It's £170 or so but there are cheaper models in the etrex range, which should be fairly similar. The HCX means 'H' - High sensitivity receiver, 'C' - colour display, 'X' - External memory card. There are cheaper models which lack one or more of these features. I can't comment on Mac compatibility, but the Micro-SD card file system is mounted automatically in Ubuntu Linux, I would expect similar functionality in any other decent operating system. I've got a handlebar mount for it (bought on ebay) which is great, the colour display is good quality and it's relatively intuitive to use. What's more, I've downloaded an OSM map onto the memory card, which it then uses as its base map. Great for seeing which streets/paths are already on the map!

Royston (south)

Nice work! The area is running out of places still to do, although I've got Witchford, Little Downham, Sutton, Mepal and of course Soham (which just seems to be eluding me at the moment) on my mental to-do list. However I was having a look around the rest of the country to get a feel for how complete we are - it was unfortunately a rather depressing experience.