But I'm not going to work on what I can't see. For one thing, there's no way to check my work. What now? I've begun testing Maperitive, which seems to be capable of custom rendering by editing a fairly straightforward template file (though I haven't got it working yet). So, I'd use that for rendering and what for editing? I've got 15 years of AutoCAD experience and am running DraftSight now for the small chores... that could make layers but the OSM editor doesn't allow selecting multiple objects... anyways, it seems easy to update later with that facility.

Thanks folks, I'm starting to get a clue. Wow, this one looks great: http://maps.cloudmade.com/

Thanks, the only other view I found was the OpenCycleMap, which is cool, though I couldn't figure out much there... seems the committee or whatever has only agreed on showing major routes but I know there are a lot more bike lanes in my area, appearing weekly in fact, where I ride.

I understand it would theoretically be possible to make your own rendering page and I imagine there are university projects, etc but none of that exists as far as I can tell. I did actually take a week-long course at ESRI years ago so have some clue of the potential but I'm not much of a coder these days. It would be fantastic if I could set up my own projects for example natural areas in the city but it seems you've got to work within the rendering possibilities if you want to actually be able to see anything.

Ha, I know so little, like how to search the map... all I know is scrolling around and put it into edit mode to inspect the tags.