Grand Rapids, Michigan

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Grand Rapids, Michigan
Wikidata

latitude: 42.963, longitude: -85.668
Browse map of Grand Rapids 42°57′46.80″ N, 85°40′04.80″ W
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Grand Rapids is a City in Michigan at latitude 42°57′46.80″ North, longitude 85°40′04.80″ West.

Welcome to Grand Rapids! This wiki page is for the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland CSA (Comprising the seven counties of Allegan, Ionia, Kent, Mecosta, Montcalm, Muskegon, and Ottawa)

Needs

  • Buildings: Most neighborhoods don't even have buildings yet :( RapID is a great tool to quickly add buildings
  • Sidewalks/footpaths
  • Business listings
  • Bus routes

While you don't have to focus on those things, they are the biggest need and the most helpful to us currently.

Which map do I use?

Esri is the most up to date map across the area (not Clarity, that's like 10 years old). In some parts of GR, Bing maps are much clearer and only a few months behind in some areas. They all have a slight offset, so please be sure to match the existing mappings before adding new ones.

Data Sources

Currently there are no good data sources. Kent, Ottawa, and Allegan Counties all offer a GIS parcel viewer, but it's under a revocable license, so please do not use it.

Local Conventions

For the sake of consistency, here are the conventions to use when mapping the GR area:

Sidewalks

Sidewalks are mapped as separate ways. Note that "sidewalk" in OSM is only for ways that are alongside a road. Sidewalks that are not alongside a road should be mapped as foot paths. Wider than normal sidewalks should not be automatically tagged as cycleways, there must be an official designation, either signed or on a website, to qualify as a cycleway.

Crossings

If the crossing has traffic signals, then mark the node as such (iD calls it "Crossing with Pedestrian Signals", the tag is `crossing=traffic_signals`). If the crossing is marked, make sure you add that information to both the way and the node

Michigan Left

See Michigan Lefts

Highway Classification

We're currently working to bring our highway classification in line with the 2021 US Highway Classification guidelines. Please read that article for the overall guidelines, any local notes and exceptions are listed below

Local notes

Primary

Since we have a dense grid system, there might be many options for a primary road. For our area, the one that should be designated primary is the one which provides the best route into a population center. For smaller towns, that will generally be any roads going directly through the middle of the town, for larger cities it will be the largest road that goes through a part of the city.

Secondary

Secondary roads branch off higher level roads to provide connectivity to other areas of a city, or to provide alternate routes. Secondary roads should not be directly next to each other in a grid system, there should be at least 1, usually 2 roads between them.

Tertiary

Tertiary roads provide connectivity from higher level roads to mainly residential areas.

Unclassified/Residential

Choosing between unclassified and residential can be tricky. The rule of thumb is if it feels like you're driving through a neighborhood, or a dead-end street with only houses, then it's residential, otherwise it's unclassified.

Mappers

Currently, these are the active mappers around town:

  • emersonveenstra (Em on Slack and Em#0231 on Discord): Mainly mapping Grandville, Wyoming, and Byron Center.

Changeset Feed

There are a few OSMCha filters that we use to track changesets: