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Want to Help Bike Map Your Town?

Submitted by Christopher Curnutt on January 15, 2011 – 10:52 am3 Comments

Open Street Map

My buddy Richard at Cycleliscious has just written a tutorial for using the Open Street Map. He and I have recently chatted a few times about the differences of Google Bike maps, Mapquest, and Open Street Map, which is like a Wiki for bike maps.

MapQuest’s bike routing API uses OpenStreetMap data to preferentially route cyclists on bike facilities. It works well when the data is complete and connected, but fails completely when the data isn’t there. This tutorial shows how you can help complete the data” – Richard Masoner, Cycleliscio.us

More than once I have seen a section of the Dallas bike trail system that was missing in the Google Bike Map, so I sent an email to notify them and later I received a reply indicating they had updated their map. That’s about the extent of my contribution to helping map our trail system.

Richard’s tutorial walks you through understanding how Open Street Map works and also how you can contribute. If you are a bike trail and/or route mapping kind of person then drop by and read his tutorial. I’m still studying it myself and I plan to experiment some over the weekend.

-Chris

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Christopher Curnutt

Chris started riding a bike again when he noticed the Preston Ridge Trail being constructed across the street from his house. Since then he co-founded Biking in Dallas, has gone through countless Craigslist bike projects (some better than others) and can be found pedaling around town on a Electra Ticino with a camera in tow.