Openstreetmap VS OpenRailwayMap

Contributing is simple:

1. When you see a trail or any other feature that doesn't appear on the map, take a picture.

2. When you get home, visit https://www.openstreetmap.org and start drawing.

The website has satellite images overlayed wirh map data, so it's easy to see what you are doing.

You can look at your pictures to remind yourself of what was missing.

If you have recorded your ride,you can also upload your GPX trace to OpenStreetMap to make it easier to trace features that don't show up clearly on satellite images.

What impressed me was that it looks like openstreetmap shows the bridge as down already.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/39.2144/-76.5279

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Way overdue. OpenStreetMap's website at openstreetmap.org is its calling card, and for the past few years the default style shown (called Carto) has all but stagnated in development. Accepted features like highway=busway (introduced three years ago) are not rendered there because the maintainers can no longer be bothered, or dislike the tag personally despite broad community backing.

What worries me for this new effort is that Paul Norman is one of the two remaining Carto sometimes-active maintainers who refuse to merge contributed PRs or even provide alternative minimal support for features like highway=busway, leading to awkward gaps on the baseline map shown on openstreetmap.org.

I would love to be surprised in a positive way about this new effort, but I'm not holding my hopes up. Thankfully OpenStreetMap can be thoroughly useful in apps like OsmAnd and OrganicMaps, and the tile-based Tracestrack Topo layer on openstreetmap.org is getting quite decent:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#layers=P

https://www.hotosm.org/tools-and-data runs software that's used for example after an earthquake. The tasking manager specifically is a reactjs app plus postgresql with plenty of open issues. HOTOSM has full-time staff, I'm not sure if the developers are full-time, but it's more organized than a volunteer project.

https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/ is Ruby on Rails (easy installable with a docker setup). The maintainers have trouble even reviewing incoming PRs so an experienced person who can triage, test, review is currently needed.

If you're in the US then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_for_America might be worth having a look at.

https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/ will soon annouce vetted organizations who do open source. (last year https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2023/organizati...). Project are paid, the process is long though, all summer. https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline

> 9450 S. W. Barns Rd

Portlandians: Are Barns Rd and Barnes Rd the same thing? Looks like a nice spot if so: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/45.50901/-122.77468

That building is now a SFX agency: https://hellohinge.com/ (No relation to the dating app)

Also curious if the TEKsystems employment agency next door took its name from Tektronix.

Yes, https://www.openstreetmap.org has quite inconsistent detail as it relies on people mapping stuff.

And help is welcome, anyone can join and help with mapping!

It's shown on OpenStreetMap, but not as a street: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/51.3682/1.0330

Looks nice but it's probably not really usable for navigation. I checked the Netherlands and Germany. You'd need more details for safely navigating on the water. But it definitely has potential.

There are also some other specialized open street map based maps for

- rails: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

- cycling: https://www.opencyclemap.org/

- sea map (competes with this I guess, and is a bit more detailed for navigation): https://map.openseamap.org/

And probably loads of other ones.

This might be a good place to share: https://www.openrailwaymap.org

The other thing to take into account is where they would need to build routes to make it happen. Looking at https://www.openrailwaymap.org/, there's some spots that need to be filled in to make a Pittsburgh <-> Erie line. But, I could see Meadville and New Castle being at least two of the stops on the way.

The Amtrak plan I linked shows it following the Norfolk-Southern Harrisburg line. It would come from Reading and Phoenixville, through KOP, then join up with the Trenton line near Rte1 and head towards 30th St. From there it looks like it would follow the remainder of the Keystone route. You can follow the path here too:https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

^ This is just not true. For reference.

France has an excellent high speed rail network it has less need for domestic flights. Other countries in the EU could learn from that.

Germany particularly is a basket case. If you take the "high speed" train from Berlin to Köln, it takes nearly five hours, the train stops lots of times, and with the exception of a few tens of kilometers never hits anywhere near its maximum speed. Combined with all the delays, cancelled trains, strikes, etc. It makes for a bit unpredictable experience. Domestic flights are well under 1 hour, typically. Even with the hassle of getting to and from airports, it's way faster.

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ has a nice map that you can show the maximum speeds on rail segments. Spain and France are the best. I've taken high speed trains in both and their high speed trains go the maximum speed most of the journey. Germany is notable for just not having a lot of rail suitable for its trains to drive their maximum speed.

Germany could do a lot better. But it will require massive investments.

I think the idea of a night train is more attractive than the reality of it being very slow, expensive, and relatively uncomfortable (at least I never managed to sleep well on one).

IMHO domestic flights in many countries can start transitioning to fully electric hops in the next decade or so. Anything under 700 miles is fair game for that. The battery technology is getting there. So, investing in lots of rail might not be the smartest thing.

Open Infra Map; shows major electrical lines, power plants, gas & oil lines, and telecom/data centers. Gets its data from Open Street Map: https://openinframap.org/

Open Railway Map; shows railroad lines. Also gets its data from OSM: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

This is even better: https://www.openrailwaymap.org