[Geowanking] Map Image APIs

Wed Apr 25 09:02:28 PDT 2007

David et al,

I've mostly lurked on this list, but this a good opportunity for me to
de-lurk and offer some clarification...

The Census Bureau uses the transportation geography in support of its
central mission, which is the constitutionally-mandated census and
demographic profiles, -not transportation applications. Thus, it's very
difficult for the Census Bureau to justify the added expense of
collecting turn restrictions, speed limits, and so forth. 

On the other hand, state DOT's and USDOT have far more need for those
attributes that support routing and network connectivity. So, your
second line of questioning, with regard to helping to create the
intergovernmental relationships necessary to add on to the TIGER
geography may be a better focus for discussions on this list. Where does
it make sense for USDOT (and state DOT's) to team up with Census to add
this level of attribution? How would this process be governed and how
would the governance process insure that the missions of both Census and
DOT were met? Lastly, how can this list be used to generate and advance
the kind of collaborative partnerships that could enhance TIGER and
other national data resources?  

Hope this helps brings the discussion into sharper focus,

Steven

________________________________

From: geowanking-bounces at lists.burri.to
[mailto:geowanking-bounces at lists.burri.to] On Behalf Of David William
Bitner
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 11:03 AM
To: geowanking at lists.burri.to
Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Map Image APIs

Charles,

I understand that routing improvements are not in the budget as they are
not required for any Census operations.  However, The Census Bureau must
realize that they produce the only publicly available nationwide dataset
of this type that has far broader applications than their own internal
business needs.  What can we do as a community to try to help secure
funding or to create relationships with other government agencies
(federal or otherwise) to whom these enhancements would be valuable?
With a dataset as import as this street data is, we need to make sure
that we keep the blinders off. 

David

On 4/24/07, charles.e.dingman at census.gov < charles.e.dingman at census.gov
<mailto:charles.e.dingman at census.gov> > wrote: 

	I don't think there will be any further releases of TIGER/Line
Files (see 
	http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/future/future_tl.html),
though the
	information will be released in several other forms, once or
twice a year. 

	The underlying database will have more accurate coordinate
information for
	more counties, as the MAF/TIGER Accuracy Improvement Program
completes, but
	new data that would help with routing, such as turn
restrictions, speeds, 
	and one-way streets, are not included.  They are not in the
budget, and not
	required by any planned operation that would justify them in the
budget.

	Charles Dingman, Geographer/301-763-1120
	4H040, Geography Division 
	US Census, 4600 Silver Hill Rd Stop 7400
	Washington, DC 20233-7400

	             "Tom Longson
	             (nym)"
	             <tomlong at gmail.co
To
	             m>                        geowanking at lists.burri.to
	             Sent by:
cc 
	             geowanking-bounce
	             s at lists.burri.to
Subject
	                                       Re: [Geowanking] Map
Image APIs 

	             04/24/2007 05:09
	             PM

	             Please respond to
	             geowanking at lists.
	                 burri.to

	>From what I understand using TIGER for routing is a bad idea
because TIGER 
	doesn't say which roads are one way, on ramps, off ramps, etc.
Could be
	potentially dangerous, although very cool regardless. I
personally love
	this...

	"Graphserver will return an itinerary between any two connected
vertices, 
	even if the itinerary is absurd. In this case traveling by bus
and foot
	from downtown Seattle to deep within the foothills of the
Cascade Mountians
	involves an eight-hour hike from one of the most remote bus
stops in the 
	county." -
http://graphserver.sourceforge.net/img/absurd_route_large.png

	Anyone have info when the next release of TIGER is expected, and
if it will 
	have more data to solve some of these routing problems?

	Tom Longson
	________________
	CAR&D / Cars.com

	On 4/24/07, Paul Ramsey < pramsey at refractions.net
<mailto:pramsey at refractions.net> > wrote:
	  Ryan Sarver wrote:

	  > We run mapserver internally and I was trying to avoid it as
a
	  > consumer-facing app could be pretty taxing on the system.
It's much
	  more
	  > fun to use someone else's resources :). But its sounding
like that
	  might
	  > be my best bet.

	  Robust at a software level, not so much at a "good answers"
level. Using
	  TIGER for routing is contraindicated. 

	  --

	     Paul Ramsey
	     Refractions Research
	     http://www.refractions.net
	     pramsey at refractions.net
	     Phone: 250-383-3022
	     Cell: 250-885-0632
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-- 
************************************
David William Bitner 
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