I got off my butt at lunch today and walked a bit more of Daytona Beach, FL, USA.

Part of the walk was on International Speedway Boulevard. While there I fixed a building (a church was purchased by Bethune-Cookman University), verified a few others, and added some missing businesses.

On the way in to work I added a business. I’ve decided to try to add one new business along my commute every day.

Slowly we progress.

Beach Street, Daytona Beach, FL, USA, is one of the prime commercial areas in Daytona Beach. Currently the city government is making extensive modifications to the street itself, moving it from two lanes each direction to one lane. It’s also adding parking and trying to convert the street from a through road to a destination.

And so it was disconcerting to notice that one entire block of Beach Street – from International Speedway Boulevard to Magnolia Avenue, had only one business listed, Net Works, Inc. It’s understandable why a computer company would be on OSM. After all, we’re all geeks, right.

But there were a lot of stores, etc., that were ignored on that block. Additionally, all the different storefronts and alleys were all combined into a single “building”. So I walked down the street this morning, adding in every open business between those two streets. I also separated out the buildings and left open the alley. It’s difficult to talk about attracting business if the map doesn’t show any place for the people to go.

Of course, now I have to deal with the delay time as the changes work their way slowly through the different OSM zoom levels. Right now (six hours later) the changes haven’t propagated through any zoom levels, although they do appear on the Edit screen if you feel the urge to see the changes. Oh well, we’ll see what it looks like in a few days.

I’m not 100% accurate on where the specific businesses are. However, the order is correct, and the difference should be minor.

This morning I also added a couple more businesses from my daily commute to work.

I added a few miscellaneous items yesterday.

First, yesterday morning I added my gas station in DeLand. So now my RaceTrak is on the map.

Then, while I work I added one of our community centers to the map. I also added (separately) the tennis courts and the swimming pool. Since this was a work facility, there’s no guilt about doing that during the day.

I also made changes to the big hospital in Daytona Beach. The way it was mapped originally, a lot of the land on the other side of the street from the hospital was listed as hospital grounds. There’s an apartment building just constructed on that land, so I know it’s no longer hospital grounds. So I deleted that marker, but I added the Florida Health Care building which, while not associated with the hospital, is right across the street.

Finally, yesterday evening’s walk brought me by two Stetson dorms that weren’t tagged on the map. So I changed them from building to dorm and added the name to them.

Finally, apparently my application to the OSM Foundation was rejected because I used the wrong user name. Duh. So I resubmitted my membership application.

Well, that was an experience.

Yesterday I “ran” a 24K trail race. While I ended up walking a bunch of it, it did “finish” the race.

I came in last. (Correction: There was someone about an hour or so behind me. I didn’t know he was back there until I got home and looked at the results. It was probably dark before he finished the course.) If you’re interested, here’s the link to the actual run: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/5728800211

However, I did make a few changes to the map based upon my run. Not a lot, but there were parts of the beginning of the run which were also visible on the photography that I marked. I also made a few other changes based on the run, so the map was updated.

A lot of the run was on unmapped mountain bicycle trails. They weren’t visible on the photograph, so I wasn’t comfortable putting them on the map. However, I did add the GPS trace to the database so if someone gets gung ho they can see what they can add. Enjoy.

My watch says I can’t run until Thursday morning, so I’m taking a bit of me time.

A while ago they put in a WaWa near Daytona Beach City Hall. I just added it. I also moved the Daytona Beach Greyhound Station marker so that it’s obvious that it’s behind the building.

Today I had to get new glasses at the local mall. I quickly noticed one or two items that I could fix immediately, but there have been changes to the stores. So I’m going to come back next rainy day and do a better job of updating the information here.

Well, that was fun. Beach Street in Daytona Beach, FL, USA, between Orange Avenue and Magnolia Avenue was fully laid out in the map. Lot’s of stores, etc. Unfortunately, as with many very busy commercial areas, there’s a high turnover in the stores in a given area.

Just in this one block area, I ended up deleting about half of the existing businesses and adding even more. Well, at least it’s up to date. For the time being.

Today I got lazy. I’ve got a city commission meeting on Wednesday and my hair is getting a bit long, so I thought I’d spend my lunch getting a hair cut. The bad news is that they were backed up, so I made an appointment for tomorrow. The good news is that they weren’t on the map, so I added them.

It was raining, and I was lazy, so I didn’t do my normal two mile walk finding new stuff to add to the map. But I did get something for the day, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

I thought I’d take a look this morning at my normal morning walk. (I walk to the local 7-Eleven to buy a V-8. That way I’m getting some vegetables in my diet. It’s probably not enough, but it’s better than nothing.) I discovered that there were several commercial establishments that just weren’t on the map.

So I added them.

Back to just identifying a few commercial establishments. Today while walking I was on Plymouth Avenue between Woodland Boulevard and Alabama Avenue in DeLand. I took the opportunity to mark two commercial enterprises on the south side of the street.

I’ll have to do the north side next. There’s a union office to mark, but mostly part of a shopping center. That just means adding tags to an existing building.

After dinner while on my computer, I also added a few fast food restaurants on north International Speedway Boulevard. I’m not promoting fast food, but that’s what people are looking for when they’re driving.

Today I was able to go back to the original reason I started editing OpenStreetMap. No, it’s not so that local businesses are easier to find. No, it’s not so I can make my mark on the world. It’s because when I was running I kept finding that roads I was going to run on were either non-existent or that they were private.

Today while knocking off a small sub development on the north west corner of DeLand, I found myself following a path that ended in a fence. The route continued on, but it was obviously a private residence.

And so I ended up editing that road, splitting it into a public and private section. I also found a few typos in the street names of the sub development. And I added a sidewalk next to a highway. That way a runner will be able to find a safer way to run the road. (Unless they like running down the side of the road, trying to figure out if the driver coming their way was high or not.)

So today had a nice little set of edits.

Today I had blood work, I took the MOS Word Associate exam, and picked up my daughter at the airport. This meant that I didn’t do any walking around Daytona Beach.

However, once I got home I still had to get my 10,000 minimum steps in. So I took the dogs for walks, and then I walked over to a local florist that was not on the main commercial drag. So I knew that it had never been added to OSM.

It’s there now.

Today’s walk completed the south east corner of International Speedway Boulevard and Nova Road in Daytona Beach, FL, USA. Apparently someone had already gone down most of International Speedway Boulevard in this area and marked the businesses, so the obvious additions were already done.

However, I noticed that the motorcycle dealership had been purchased by Bethune-Cookman University a while ago, so I was able to update that building. A Dollar General had been built a couple years ago, so I removed the old (small) building and replaced it with a much larger Dollar General. And then on the way back to my car I noticed that the Little Caesar restaurant was closed and for sale, so I removed those tags and left it as an empty building. There is a business on the east side of the building, but I don’t remember what it is. Perhaps I’ll remember to add it at a later date.

Well, I’m not sure what the Diary feature is for. So I’m just going to list what I’m doing and what I accomplished in OpenStreetMap. After all, today marks my 100th edit to OSM.

I’m currently attempting to run my city (DeLand, FL, USA) and to walk the city in which I work (Daytona Beach, FL, USA). The activities automatically create a GPX trace on my watch, which is automatically imported in CityStrides. I’ve tried to create running routes using Garmin Connect in advance so that I don’t miss some of the roads.

What I discovered is that CityStrides uses OpenStreetMap to generate it’s road data, and that the data isn’t always correct. After CS announced that they were working on an update process to incorporate all of the changes and corrections on OSM into their site, I started making corrections to OSM.

Recently I’ve realized that OSM incorporates far more data than merely road and trails. So I’ve made a resolution to add/correct at least one thing per day in OSM. Since I’m always walking/running somewhere new, it shouldn’t be that hard.

Today’s lunch time walk in Daytona Beach added a prominent pawn shop, changed the name of a street to match the rest of the street, and added the building outline of a church that was already on OSM. A good day’s work.