I think i’ll be short about how I map addresses in Rákospalota. I once got some addresses from a document to OSM but didn’t notice it that it’s just for reference, so lot of addresses were inaccurate in it.

Because I’m now a university student (actually a freshman), studying in my 2nd semester, I have to register for P.E. classes (in the 2nd and 3rd semester as suggested). That’s what I did in January, when registering for subjects started. The problem is that university is closed because of COVID-19, so nobody can enter the area of the university without written permission from the rector.

Every student who now are completing P.E., have to track 100 kms (62 miles) of walking/running or rowing (or 200 km by bicycle, 20 km/trip and 40 km max a week) in the semester totally with Strava application on smartphone, minimum 5 km (3.1 miles) per trip, and 15 km (9.3 miles) can be signed a week.

So because of that, I started walking in my area, but I was like “Hey! I don’t wanna get bored, I want to survey my area, because OSM is still lacking lot of addresses and some are inaccurate, let’s fix this!”

In Budapest every district has their street signs at each street corner to show where you are and what are the interpolations between the two ends of the street segment. I started to write down the interpolations into my phone, and then when I arrived home, I put the data on OSM.

But also, we Hungarians have a different address reference than the one I was using, and it seems a bit more accurate, even if it’s not a map, but it has some false addresses(I gotta know this because I know where a street starts and where it ends), so at least I can report to the maintainer that there is an issue (https://osm-gimmisn.vmiklos.hu/)

I usually use this website to check out what “/A” “/B” etc. addresses to look for when I’m surveying on the spot, because my neighborhood is full of those divided plots, like Sín utca for example.

Today I decided to clean up the mess over in Rákospalota Öregfalu, so I literally searched each lettered address so to know where it splits or which house i can find it. That makes the rest of addressing easier than you’d think.

But I also started to map Rákospalota Kertváros, because that is also a very empty spot on the map (it was more before I gotta use OSM and started drawing the buildings everywhere)

Surveying is fun but it’s also exhausting, all data are now verified in my area(which was affected my bullshit, got the tag verified=yes because I literally was there and checked it, either via street sign (if there wasn’t any /A /B or literally went to the spot), because I thoroughly checked them out by the time(and by today :), I had around 6 miles of walking today, well it was exhausting), since I live there and know what’s here.

I hope this diary note was interesting. Btw, I’m making a presentation about this so i can show you how i get the addresses, and you get better point of view. When I’m done with it, i’ll post the URL of the presentation in the comments.