GeoBus
An OSM Project to promote mapping across the United States and possibly Canada. The road trip will involve lots of maps, music, and social events.
Events
Planning
Telephone Discussions
First: Thursday August 19, 2010 8:00PM EDT Second: Thursday August 26, 2010 8:00PM EDT Third: Thursday September 2, 2010 8:00PM EDT Fourth: Thursday September 9, 2010 8:00PM EDT Fifth: Thursday September 16, 2010 8:00PM EDT Sixth: Thursday September 23, 2010 8:00PM EDT Seventh: Thursday September 30, 2010 8:00PM EDT Eighth: Thursday October 7, 2010 8:00PM EDT Ninth: Thursday October 14, 2010 8:00PM EDT Tenth: Thursday October 21, 2010 8:00PM EDT Eleventh: Thursday October 28, 2010 8:00PM EDT Twelfth (Next): Thursday November 4, 2010 8:00PM EDT
Call-In: 218-486-3891 x663610833
Action Items
* Find GeoBus Locations, plan a GeoBus mapping party
* Carlisle, PA
* Merge with Community Events Workgroup Foundation/Local Chapters/United States/Working Groups/Community Events
Ideas
Community Involvement
The road trip would stop at points of interest and hold mapping parties. The mappers would also be able to attend social events throughout the country and help spread the ideas and uses of OpenStreetMap mapping to members of the local communities.
Since the road trip wil inevitably involve a lot of driving on the highways, it would be a great opportunity to update the maps of the US highway routes, and to take care of issues with on ramps and interchanges that may pose a problem to navigation with the current OSM data.
Rural Areas
The nature of mapping parties involves large community involvement, and major population centers are the target. This leaves a lot of rural areas to rely on TIGER data. Much of the road trip will be spent driving between cities, and will give the mappers opportunities to map rural areas, roadside attractions, state and local parks, and anything that may be interesting to someone in the area.
Parkland
There are 58 National Parks in the country, as well as many more state parks and local parks. These recreation areas are of great interest to the US population. Road trip mappers would have the opportunities to stop at some of these parks in the course of the road trip, and map trails and buildings. It may also be possible to work with the park rangers and obtain free trail information that can be digitized and imported.
Methods
GeoBus
The GeoBus idea is to obtain a schoolbus and convert it (Skoolies) into a mobile mapping station. The idea is that the bus would drive around the major cities and social events to hold mapping parties and to promote the ideas of open source and OpenStreetMap.
Road Trips
An alternative to the GeoBus idea involves a smaller scale Road Trip. This will likely involve personal vehicles and staying at the homes of those who are kind enough to volunteer space to the mappers. The road trip idea could be extended to involve multiple smaller road trips in different parts of the country, so that more ground can be covered in less time. This would allow mappers who do not have a lot of vacation time to participate when they are available. The road trips could pick up people and drop them off in different places.
Funding
While the work is carried out by mapping volunteers, there are some very real costs. All funding will need to be provided by donations.
Some of the costs would come from:
- Gas
- Insurance
- Vehicle Maintenance
- Food
- Lodging
- Tolls