OpenStreetMap
Most out of date data in OSM?
Posted by Gregory Arenius on 4 May 2009 in English. Last updated on 14 May 2009.I just deleted what I think could be one of the most out of date nodes in the entire OSM project. It was a TIGER data import of a train station, the Southern Pacific Terminal, in San Francisco. That station was demolished sometime in the 70s. The location was an RV park for a long time after that and is currently home to a large multi-use retail and residential condo project. That means we had 40 year out of date data in project that hasn't even been around a quarter of that time!
I thought that was funny but even funnier to me was that none of the TIGER mappers noticed that what was once a large, beautiful mission revival train station was no longer there. How does the government get its data for that map, anyhow?
Cheers,
Greg
Discussion
Comment from Minh Nguyen on 4 May 2009 at 08:24
Was it a way (for instance, the tracks leading to the station) or a point of interest (on the station itself)? The tracks would’ve come from TIGER, while the POIs were mostly imported from the GNIS, which contains both historical and current landmarks. Many of the historical landmarks have “(historic)” in their names, but I’ve spotted quite a few points in my area that are simply out of date – especially post offices.
Comment from Socratestravels on 4 May 2009 at 09:38
We need a mapper like you, to spot these mistakes. Good work!
Comment from amillar on 5 May 2009 at 06:40
Yes, that was definitely a GNIS point. As Minh says, many of the historical points just don't have any indication on them. I scrutinized a lot of data in that upload, but with many thousands of points across the US, it's just going to take good eyes and local knowledge like yours for some portion of them. Thanks for catching it!