I’ve given up on JSOM for maybe a year ever since Option+Click+hold quit dragging/scrolling the map. While I’ve seen a lot of suggestions on how to get this working again, it appears the best solution is hardware: get a two button mouse and Right Click+hold to scroll.

I added a railroad=turntable a while back. About the same time mapnik started rendering the tag, I heard the turntable was removed. Maybe someone from Trimet can verify, it’s close by.

osm.org/go/WIDlhPuan

I’ve been slowly trying to use iD in place of Potlatch 2. (I’ll get back to using JOSM when they allow scrolling when holding down the option key on Macs again.)

Here’s a few observations now that I’ve spent some time with it. 1. It would be great if it had a “repeat last action” key like “r” in Potlatch. 2. I’m impressed that it supplies suggested feature types based on whether I’ve selected a node or a way. Potlatch (and JOSM) allow me to put node types (highway=turning_circle) on ways, leading to maplint. iD makes that mistake harder to accomplish. 3. I spend a lot of time changing highway=residential to highway=tertiary in the USA. At first, I expanded the “All tags” section and changed the highway type. However, a better way to do this is to select the way, click the “Residential way” box at the top of the list, then choose Road, followed by Tertiary Road. iD remembers this selection, and puts it at the top of the list next time. Nice. (Hint: even better if it had the repeat key from above). 4. I miss the ability to drag a way/area like Potlatch/JOSM can. It can be nice to see whether the highway has a center stripe. 5. I miss Potlatch’s ability to “square” an area or “circle” an area. 6. I miss Potlatch’s ability to “straighten” a way. 7. I like the JOSM like “dots” in the ways although JOSM seems easier to use. 8. It’s probably better to have to force me to choose a node/way/area than to just start drawing.

What are your experiences?

After a brief trip to Austin, Texas, I made some OSM updates, particularly fixing some maplint from Keepright. Here are my brief observations:

• Roads ending with a turning circle often have the title “Cove”. Portland doesn’t seem to use that designation at all.

• There aren’t many roads with center stripes…or at least the center stripes are hard to see in Bing!.

All mappers, particularly newbies, should take a look at http://keepright.ipax.at/ for sources of maplint.

I’ve noticed two maplint trends in Oregon: a) A bunch of “This node is not a member of any way and does not have any tags.” Presumably, this lint was left behind after The Great License Change redactions. It seems like it would be a good thing to have a bot go through OSM and remove points that fit this description. Why is that not a good idea? b) I’ve seen a lot of people creating areas (playgrounds, buildings) then giving one of the nodes the tags. No no no. I believe if a business occupies an entire building, it’s OK to tag the building, not just a node. In the case of playgrounds, it makes no sense at all to create an area then tag a node.

Anyone seen trends in their area?

For some reason–possibly because Portland is looking pretty good on the map–I’ve started adding the alleys of Tacoma, WA. I have to say, I thought Eugene, OR had a lot but that was before seeing this town.

For reasons only known to the TIGER folks, it appears that alleys weren’t high on their list of things to map, although driveways on country roads were important.

So if you’re in the Tacoma area, take a look at the alleys, particularly those that appear to be dead ends and verify whether they are.

thanks, -Dion

When I started contributing to OSM, I used to be super stoked to add new roads to the map, either with satellite imagery or with GPS traces.

These days, that doesn’t excite me so much. I suspect this is mainly because getting the roads names is either tedious (camera phone) or impossible (aerial imagery tracing).

I have developed an interest in updating the TIGER import to show tertiary roads. When the USA census TIGER data was imported, roads less than secondary were typically tagged “highway=residential”. However, if you know your neighborhood, you’ll know that some of them are supposed to be arterials. I’ve been trying to go over Oregon (particularly NW, the Pacific coast, Central and NE) and tag the tertiary roads.

Maybe some of my changes will be useful for routing someday.

How have your mapping interests evolved?