Re: [Talk-us] Reference numbers to use for hiking trail route relations
On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 5:48 PM Mark Brown wrote: > I've noticed that the US Topo Maps are way out of date before - whole > rivers have shifted since the version that displays on JSOM was last > compiled. Still, like TIGER roads, it's better than nothing I guess. > No surprise. USGS was defunded in the G.H.W. Bush administration and hasn't really done field surveys since. The new US Topo series is based on whatever databases they had or could get their hands on. In many places it's missing even the railroads. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/why-are-there-no-power-lines-pipelines-libraries-trails-etc-us-topo-maps Unfortunately, for political reasons, they've been forced to set themselves up in competition with OSM even as they've come to rely on crowdsourced data. As far as I can tell "The National Map Corps" ( https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/tnm-corps) hasn't really gone anywhere. OSM, at this point, offers more 'bang' for the volunteers' 'buck'. (The big problem, from the perspective of any government agency, is that OSM doesn't have enough administrative control; who's to say that the mappers are trustworthy? They could put *any* sort of bogosity into the map! And I had better stop myself before I veer off into saying something political that I'll regret.) In any case, we have better maps of Iraq and Afghanistan than we have of our own country. I got into this project because for too many areas near me, I couldn't get decent trail maps - from any source. The ones from the state were rife with errors; the USGS topos were sometimes from the 1953 state survey; the NatGeo trail maps were at an unusably small scale (1:75000 for a trail map? Really???) Now, thanks to many OSM volunteers, I can get reasonably usable maps for many places where I hike. The state appears to have been correcting its maps - and apparently using OSM to do it. (I also noticed that at least one USGS site uses OSM, properly credited, to produce its index map.) For all we bitch about the TIGER import, I'd probably not have joined without it. I recall looking at OSM before that happened, and saying to myself, "why bother? There's nothing there!" Now I spend various odd moments 'cleaning the cat box' after what TIGER left behind, but it was indeed better than nothing. > On Thu, 15 Oct 2020 12:14:35 -0700, stevea > wrote: > > > On Oct 15, 2020, at 12:06 PM, Joseph Eisenberg < > joseph.eisenb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Many of the old "pack trail" labeled features near my home-town are > now overgrown and barely usable. I would be skeptical about the utility of > this tag - mappers will need to survey the trail in person before > suggesting that it is currently suitable for horse, mules or other pack > animals. > > > > Right: many "trails" labelled "Pack Trail" are either from a long time > ago and/or mapped a long time ago. I would be wary of the utility of this > label on many maps, but that can be said of many labels on many maps, > especially when they are older or specify an "older" aspect of a map label > such as "Pack Trail." This has an old-fashioned sense about it, as while > pack animals on trails are certainly still used, it's safe to say far, far > less than they were in the 20th (and 19th and previous) centuries. Uhm, yeah. About the only useful information to be gleaned is that such a trail was once graded for livestock, so is highly unlikely to have rock scrambles or difficult fords. (Nothing about what our friend Castor canadensis might have done to it!) Still, there's at least one group still organizing llama trekking in the Adirondacks: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3HVYZTbQVTw/XuOGlHM3nTI/XOM/g1KTWlBPMng_xCRnmcEdcubJhBBx0M0oACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0453.jpg -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Reference numbers to use for hiking trail route relations
I've checked the latest topo maps from the US Forestry Service website - the trail number annotations remain but the "Pack" annotation is gone, so will delete those annotations. I've noticed that the US Topo Maps are way out of date before - whole rivers have shifted since the version that displays on JSOM was last compiled. Still, like TIGER roads, it's better than nothing I guess. On Thu, 15 Oct 2020 12:14:35 -0700, stevea wrote: > On Oct 15, 2020, at 12:06 PM, Joseph Eisenberg > wrote: > > Many of the old "pack trail" labeled features near my home-town are now > > overgrown and barely usable. I would be skeptical about the utility of this > > tag - mappers will need to survey the trail in person before suggesting > > that it is currently suitable for horse, mules or other pack animals. > > Right: many "trails" labelled "Pack Trail" are either from a long time ago > and/or mapped a long time ago. I would be wary of the utility of this label > on many maps, but that can be said of many labels on many maps, especially > when they are older or specify an "older" aspect of a map label such as "Pack > Trail." This has an old-fashioned sense about it, as while pack animals on > trails are certainly still used, it's safe to say far, far less than they > were in the 20th (and 19th and previous) centuries. > > SteveA > ___ > Talk-us mailing list > Talk-us@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Reference numbers to use for hiking trail route relations
On Oct 15, 2020, at 12:06 PM, Joseph Eisenberg wrote: > Many of the old "pack trail" labeled features near my home-town are now > overgrown and barely usable. I would be skeptical about the utility of this > tag - mappers will need to survey the trail in person before suggesting that > it is currently suitable for horse, mules or other pack animals. Right: many "trails" labelled "Pack Trail" are either from a long time ago and/or mapped a long time ago. I would be wary of the utility of this label on many maps, but that can be said of many labels on many maps, especially when they are older or specify an "older" aspect of a map label such as "Pack Trail." This has an old-fashioned sense about it, as while pack animals on trails are certainly still used, it's safe to say far, far less than they were in the 20th (and 19th and previous) centuries. SteveA ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Reference numbers to use for hiking trail route relations
Many of the old "pack trail" labeled features near my home-town are now overgrown and barely usable. I would be skeptical about the utility of this tag - mappers will need to survey the trail in person before suggesting that it is currently suitable for horse, mules or other pack animals. -Joseph Eisenberg On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 10:02 AM stevea wrote: > brad wrote > > I think I've seen old usgs topo maps, or perhaps FS maps with trails > labeled as pack trails. Not quite sure what it means, probably nothing > anymore. Perhaps the OSM person just used the info from the old map. > > A "pack trail" is suitable for pack animals, such as donkeys or horses for > carrying "in" supplies, building materials or hauling "out" garbage, ore > waste or the like. It is more substantial than a "single-track" trail for > a bipedal human, but may or may not be suitable for an off-road vehicle > like an off-road motorcycle, all-terrain-vehicle / four-runner or other > high-clearance, two-axle vehicle. It is a common phrase seen on maps of > the 19th and 20th centuries, but has fallen somewhat out of favor, though > is still seen and used. > > SteveA > ___ > Talk-us mailing list > Talk-us@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Reference numbers to use for hiking trail route relations
brad wrote > I think I've seen old usgs topo maps, or perhaps FS maps with trails labeled > as pack trails. Not quite sure what it means, probably nothing anymore. > Perhaps the OSM person just used the info from the old map. A "pack trail" is suitable for pack animals, such as donkeys or horses for carrying "in" supplies, building materials or hauling "out" garbage, ore waste or the like. It is more substantial than a "single-track" trail for a bipedal human, but may or may not be suitable for an off-road vehicle like an off-road motorcycle, all-terrain-vehicle / four-runner or other high-clearance, two-axle vehicle. It is a common phrase seen on maps of the 19th and 20th centuries, but has fallen somewhat out of favor, though is still seen and used. SteveA ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
