i remember i added those u-turn slots on EDSA months ago...i only noticed they're missing the other day when I try to route from trinoma to makati and my garmin's directing me to use the u-turn slot about 500 meters down the road instead of the nearer one near MRT north edsa terminal.

there's a missing u-turn slot from southbound to northbound that i use when I go to bago bantay (my alternate route to SM)

the u-turn slot northbound to southbound in front of trinoma just beside the other u-turn slot

the u-turn slot (two-way) a few meters from trinoma access road 9that meets mindanao ave)

the u-turn slot (two way) that I use to get home from philam homes to trinoma/sm/munoz

these missing slots mess up routing in the area, and a major one at that

how did those U-turn slots disappear? were my previous edits deleted or ignored?

my Garmin Nuvi warned me this morning that my US map was not updated for more than a year...it's not that i need to update it but i don't have a need to.

it just dawned on me that it's been with me for a year already, when i requested an online friend to buy it for me online then hand-carried it. we met at jollibee west ave a few days later...a kababayan retiree of mine who i've never really met (who also bought me an OBD 2 scanner for my car)

now what have i accomplished with my GPS? so far only a few POIs, even Munoz area where I live lacks the POIs except the banks (i'm from the banking industry that's why i always notice lacking banks and ATMs) and major restaurants. I realized i've yet to add lots of POIs in my home turf but i don't know how to tag them properly for I'm too lazy to look around again for some kind of OSM cheat sheet on how to properly tag POIs like pawnshops and LBC branches

i walked along roosevelt yesterday to observe and will update my area, it's nice that with Potlatch 2, I can just drag and drop them but if i don't know the proper tag, i simply ignore...lazy researcher or even ask questions :(

but at least, my focus on routing is reaping its benefits...found and corrected routing errors in QC, makati, manila, pasig, mandaluyong, malabon, san juan and cainta and almost impeccable now should wifey get lost again in these places

discovered another error while browsing the map near monumento and malabon zoo. this time it's in Caloocan, Malabon, Valenzuela. the segment of MacArthur is a dual carriageway i.e. it should have a center island. no idea of the other end since I'm only familiar with it from Mento up to marulas...in bulacan it's already a two-way, single carriageway road...

expect routing errors in the area as not all streets have crossings

as a backpacking and tourism advocate, one of the very frustrating things is not being able to find reliable maps of tourist places...one of them is Pagsanjan (not for me though for I have a working knowledge of the area since it's very near my hometown)

I frequent this town, not for the famous waterfall, but for the hospital where my Nanay Sugar always get confined, to buy medicine at the nearby Mercury Drug and to get cash from the quite new BDO ATM.

already added major resorts (two more missing) and will add restaurants and spas when I get the exact location. Can't see them from the high-res Bing image, unlike the resorts that are highly distinguishable from the "eye in the sky"

Twice I tried to find the ancestral home of the Ejercitos but failed, for I was too lazy to ask around, and just drove by. I think I now know where it is, thanks to Bing so I'll just verify :P

there are also two branches of the famous Aling Taleng's Halo-halo...that I didn't like, btw, I'll add the other one later :(

now this is another edge of OSM over RG :P

just realized this...there's really no way Garmin will route you to the faster SCTX-NLEX for Garmin will only think about it of there's a bend on MacArthur

it seems, Garmin looks for the nearest highest class way (tollway-trunk-primary...) but will only find ways connected to it.

MacArthur is such a very long trunk road though is prone to traffic than SCTEX and NLEX (both are tollways/expressways). On it's end is another trunk road, EDSA, via Monumento.

Unless Garmin can see that the max_speed tag for MacArthur is lower than SCTEX and NLEX, there may be a way but I doubt it.

If only I can find a route simulator for things like this. Mapsource, too, prefers road class over distance

anyway, i've been probably taking my time on this issue that i really don't need. just let people find the road to SCTEX from Tarlac (which I think should also be upgraded).

Would a long trunk road with less max_speed be preferred over two tollway_link and SCTEX-NLEX? Do I need to change the settings of my Garmin 1300 to do this or it's just the way it is so i just leave it alone?

how about changing the max_speed tags to the practical real world settings rather than the theoretical speed limits?

i discovered again routing errors on Espana this morning when i peeked to my garmin's suggested route while waiting for the traffic signal to turn green. The turn restrictions i put at the corners of trabajo and vg cruz are now working but found out there should be another one at the corner of P Noval. found also missing links for morayta plus the crossings for sh loyola. been some time since i passed by cm recto and espana but the road crossings are there for the jeepneys pass by the place.

Nicanor reyes (morayta) should also have a center island, will correct it later.

from araneta avenue, it seems garmin routing algorithm likes straight roads (where road class takes predecedence over distance according to my observation) but two microscopic bends (i discovered after zooming in to reveal the error) made we want to turn right to victory avenue then kitanlad)...routing's ok now basically going to makati via my route and every recalculation is accurate. there's only a minor glitch again at the corner of JP rizal and makati avenue. i noticed a short center island not present on OSM...will also correct later.

I expect all my routing woes to be over next week.

then i'll focus on POIs :P

whenever I try to route out of Makati from my office bldg, I had already passed by the corner of Velasquez and Tordesillas to crosss to Sanchez St before my Nuvi can home in due to tall buildings around me. Since I'd like to perfect routing in Makati, evidenced by my recent edits here and there, this corner I remembered to just conduct a simple routing test on Mapsource.

on OSM, it won't route you to simply cross and would point a roundabout route to get to the other side when actually you can just turn a little to left (just a little since Tordesillas is a one way street) then cross to Sanchez

I tried to look it up over Bing but noticed hi-res Bing imagery is misaligned and the buildings quite slanted to a certain angle.

Should I just join the two corners to connect them or turn a short segment of Tordesillas into a two-way street?

as a former internetwork engineer specialized in network routing (before I switched to my present career in information security), i'm intrigued at the routing algorithm used by Garmin to compute the route for a certain destination.

with my recent experiments, i'm pretty sure the highway tag has more weight than the total distance against "lesser ranked" ways

my recent example is La Funeraria Paz in QC from Makati. Garmin wanted to route me to Buendia, quirino highway, nagtahan espana then quezon avenue

a few kilometers farther than the way via mandaluyong, san juan then sta mesa where araneta avenue is located.

i would love OSMers to revisit the way tagging convention to force garmin to show the quickest way. note from baguio to QC, it's still via macarthur highway and not via SCTEX-NLEX last time I checked, perhaps it's the link roads to the tollways should be upgraded so that garmin can easily route through it.

I think garmin looks for the nearest motorway-trunk-primary links then use the lesser ranked roads to route...just how much the weight considered is hard to know unless someone from garmin will publish the algorithm

if there's a city in the metro that "terrorizes" me, it's san juan. passing by major roads is no problem but i dare not venture into it's interior streets alone due to confusing one-way streets, always changing, and due to past experience of getting stuck in heavy traffic with no escape route due to the city's narrow roads

every thursday, my coding day, i hitch a ride with an officemate also living in QC and sometimes we pass by San Juan circuitous roads from Shaw and exits on Ortigas and Madison (xavier school)

last year, the route was disrupted by Burgos St turned to a one-way road and we passed by there again last night. will change the tag for Burgos but only for one segment as the other end seems to be one-way too but of opposite direction.

San Juan also needs lots of updates...I can see interesting restaurants here and there not yet present on OSM

both avenues depicted as two parallel ways with center islands but not really existing. one of the first errors I saw last year and just now that i was able to correct. the Ortigas problem's been giving me routing errors for quite some time in Cainta.

turn restrictions needed at the corner of ortigas and bonifacio plus the accompanying u-turn slots

one more to go: Boni in Mandaluyong (maysilo up to felipe neri church), but the opposite of the two avenues above-- it has a center island but not depicted as such. I need to verify first the extent and from which segment.

i've added a no left turn restriction from westbound buendia to tordesillas.malugay using potlatch 2. if going to salcedo village, one should take zuellig loop (or right to malugay then u-turn)

will test it next week if it's working. bonus: i will also create a How-to with picture illustrations to make it easy for others to do it themselves on my alternate pathetic blog...

i changed the tags of a portion of acacia lane and f ortigas from residential to tertiary (where the Hulo-bound jeepneys pass by). OSM should have routed me to these streets instead of acacia lane and nayong katipunan (a purely residential area).

also noticed Boni is depicted as a single road, but in reality it's a two-parallel way road (with center island) from aglipay then maysilo. the portion from maysilo to edsa is correct (though with missing turn restrictions at the corner of Pinatubo and Mayon)...

expect routing errors in the area due to these

edited one-way streets of Sampaloc, Manila (my former home of ten years, student days)...missing turn-restriction for Espana corners lacson, vg cruz and me dela fuente (they should only be pass through, no left turns)

area lacks details, might pass by one of these days to add some POIs...lots of improvement this side of town

i again tested routing from Trinoma to Makati but intentionally passed by other roads en route to makati and discovered other errors

as i took Quezon avenue, OSM wants to route me to Espana (instead of Araneta Avenue) then Forbes (lacson) but i noticed an oddity where it wants me to turn right to Vicente Cruz (which I know should have turn restrictions) when i checked out the suggested route while waiting for the green traffic signal. I checked out Sampaloc area today and found out missing turn restrictions and one-way tags (my being a Sampaloc-resident for 10 years made me very knowledgable in the area though i noticed lots of changes to the establishments.

back to araneta, there may be an incontinuity there somewhere along victoria (will correct this). I used F Manalo instead of the suggested v mapa.

i took acacia lane from Shaw Blvd and wanted me to use Nayon ng katipunan (which is really almost impassable due to it's being full of pedestrians, the road usually taken should be F Ortigas going to P Cruz then Boni.

i was elated though when I passed by JP rizal and into San Miguel Village and Bel-air. Months ago i changed their tags to "access=yes" even if they're private roads and routed splendidly

the last wrong info I got was a left turn from Buendia to Tordesillas (no left turn) and should take Zuellig loop. after that routing was ok to my destination with properly tagged one-way roads

I should probably learn to use at least JOSM if i want to add those turn-restrictions myself :P

twice i tested routing from trinoma to cambridge village on east floodwayy in cainta. twice i took the same route going there though I chose not to follow OSM (who wants me to pass west floodway, probably a highway tag routing priority, ive yet to know garmin routing algorithm).

i took different routes going home and it routed flawlessly via pasig ( f legaspi, pasig blvd, stella maris, and eagle drive to c5 then tiendesitas)

I have to verify routing in cainta, lots of errors there plus unmapped areas for midtown and countryside, even a long portion Ortigas avenue extension has a center island but does not exist actually contributing to the error. i want to pass by east floodway to taytay but have to check first before i explore.

i'm doing this to get to brookside hills sudb ISAWAN...a favorite of mine even if it's quite far hehe

got"lost" in ortigas this afternoon.apparently, there's a one-way street not tagged correctly. i just checked routing from makati to jollibee plaza and passed by sidestreets to avoid traffic. the error is somewhere near gold loop and pearl drive. will check and correct later

yesterday I used my alternative route out of Makati CBD to get to SM Sta. Mesa and decided again to know if OSM will route me to my intended road. The route is dela costa, tordesillas, malugay, ayala avenue extension, south ave, kalayaan, pililla, osmena, to get to the bridge then go under it to cross to mandaluyong via mabini and zamora side streets.

the route will pass by only two traffic signals and really fast (it's a secret only OSM users will find) rather than use the makati avenue, bunedia or paseo de roxas that can get you out of makati in about 30 minutes...just a short distance with much time involved.

anyway, I noticed there's a missing service road on the map, one way that is, will correct it later then re-test when i decide to pass by there again

on my way to san pablo last year, i tested routing out of makati via buendia to somena highway and found these errors:

1. there's no turn restriction from Ayala to Salcedo (no left turn) and from ayala to geronimo (no left turn) and vice versa

2. my Nuvie later directed me to turn right from Buendia to Mayapis (which is blocked by bollards and used only by bikes and trikes. To get to Osmena highway southbound, you need to turn right on Osmena under the viaduct then take a U-turn. I checked it today that There's a traffic bollard at the corner but why was my unit leading me there?

when i first checked out Vigan, I was surprised that such a tourist city is not much covered by OSM. I visited it last week was able to map the major roads plus a few roads with FIXMEs just to seed...

also some sort of visita iglesia took to me various unmapped town centers: tagudin, sta. cruz, sta, lucia, sta maria, candon even hidden beaches of apatot san esteban and sulvec in narvacan

drove from sta cruz to siniloan and noticed lots of errors and missing street names. there are unmapped roads in siniloan. wrong roads in lumban that i have to delete. missing street names in pagsanjan that i've just added. will also do corrections in Pangil and Pakil towns. Paete is almost complete, just some POIs here and there and alleys that's hard to map due to "loss of satellite signal"