OpenStreetMap
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I’m a firm believer that maps are more useful with the more data on them as you can put in. Seems logical, right? When I was looking at OSM, and OsmAnd, it appears that the local functionality of the system as far as address and route guidance is completely useless as of right now, primarily because nothing has addresses entered. It’s great that so much roadway and outlines of buildings have been added, but the map is pretty much useless for the end user who just wants to get from point A to point B.
For this reason, I did some digging and was able to find North Andover’s zoning map, which includes property address numbers! (https://northandoverma.mapgeo.io)
I’ve set out to iterate through all of the addresses I can systematically over time and transfer them all into OSM. I’m sure there’s easier ways… some suggested JOSM with a MassGIS address layer, but JOSM is fairly difficult software to use and I don’t quite understand it yet. So far, I’ve been using iD editor, but that has challenges in that anything over about 100 concurrent edits in the current changeset starts really bogging down the web browser, so I have to save often.
The mission: to update all addresses systematically from west to east, to draw in driveways, and to fix misaligned buildings as I go through.
This is going to take some time.
Discussion
Comment from Peter Dobratz on 16 February 2018 at 02:36
Hi and welcome!
Thanks for improving the map. There’s always more that can be done.
If you want to coordinate with others in your area, there’s an email list: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us-massachusetts
Getting addresses from the land parcels works very well when there is only 1 building in the parcel, but watch out for duplexes and other buildings with more than one address.
Cheers, Peter
Comment from omgitsgela on 16 February 2018 at 13:23
Thanks for your feedback! I had that same concern about parcel numbers, but it seems the mapgeo system is rendering them as multiple addresses accurately, and as long as I look out for the blue “related addresses/owners” button, I have the data I need.
I’ve been putting single unit addresses on the building under a polygon, and apartments or multiple addresses as address nodes on an empty building. For businesses, I’ve been adding address data to the business POI regardless of building address, because I feel like it’s more complete data, but I’m aware the wiki says this is questionable.
I wish there were better defined regional standards. It bothers me when I see businesses on a building polygon instead of a POI, but that’s a relic of my Google Mapmaker days.
I joined up on that mailing list. Thanks!
Comment from spiregrain on 16 February 2018 at 13:55
You could also get hold of the StreetComplete app for your smartphone. It shows a map with markers where there is some missing data - it displays markers for missing house/building numbers. You can add them on-screen when you’re out and about.
Comment from OceanVortex on 16 February 2018 at 14:16
Welcome,
I addressed all of Wilmington and Woburn a few years ago. I would strongly recommend learning JOSM and using it instead of a browser-based editor.
Other suggestions:
-Add “access=private” to driveways. -Add addr:city and addr:postcode in addition to housenumber and street -Split multi-unit buildings such as row houses so you can add the addresses to the polygons rather than separate points. For two-family houses where the addresses are above or below each other, you can also add a single address to the polygon but with two values, such as “75;77”
John
Comment from spiregrain on 16 February 2018 at 14:31
If you do go for JOSM, the Terracer plugin is an absolute lifesaver for splitting rowhouses (A.K.A “terraces”) into the individual dwellings.
Comment from Alan Bragg on 16 February 2018 at 19:43
Great to have you mapping in MA. You can add the same overlay you are seeing with the house numbers in (https://northandoverma.mapgeo.io) in the id editor.
Add
http://tile.osm.osuosl.org/tiles/massgis_parcels/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png
to the locator overlay.