Thanks for the comments,

I have enjoyed these first few days working on the maps in my state. OSM seems very intuitive and easy to use. I like that the community watches the changes and allows them to go through with out the trust issues that plague Google Maps. I grew frustrated with Google that they would hold certain edits and allow others to go through without reason or worse I would make a large number of changes and an “editor” would follow up behind me and undo the changes in a small segment but could not justify it. Despite that, I continue to work on both platforms.

I have been very aware of the shortcomings of the TIGER project. My understanding is it was more of a proof of concept project than expected to be released to the public without more verification but the federal government expected the private sector to pick up where the government left off. I have talked over the year with reps from Navteq and Garmin and they admit they don’t have the resources to work much outside population centers and here we are.

As to sweating the details, well I do lean toward the anal retentive, lol. I also remember the first generation navigation devices that always took you on the shortest path possible and well, it was amusing at first to be told to exit the interstate at nearly every town but quickly became annoying. Road types are an important part of the database and take it from my job, someone who is lost quickly depends on their device a little too much and common sense goes out the door. It is a long night when a semi has to back up 3 miles down a single lane dirt road a GPS with a bad map told him to go down.

Thanks for the comment, I am leaning toward the big picture first simply because it has the most immediate benefit for the most people. Much of my area is being worked on for trails and features but the road network seems to be neglected, probably because it is a huge job. It is tough when I see some standards for tagging roads but little agreement. The types of road vary greatly and can be tough to pigeonhole. In Minnesota, a marked county road could be anything from a road built to Interstate/Motorway standards to nothing more than two dirt trails with grass in the middle. Hopefully I don’t step on anyone’s toes.