Kevin Whitworth / Jacurutu

Well, OK, so I haven't completely & single-handedly mapped the local area for OpenStreetMap yet, but I have finished the tracks I generated as part of the Leeds Mapping Party, and a few I've picked up subsequently.

Has it made a massive difference? Probably not, but I've managed to fill in a few blanks, and improve the structure of the mapped road network in the area between Leeds, York and Selby. There's an awful lot left to do, including the detail of residential streets in all the towns and villages, but hopefully we're now a step closer to being finished.

My next goals are probably completing Cawood, and perhaps one or two other local villages, and then to push out beyond the A19 into East Yorkshire where there's a lot of key roads and even villages still missing. In the mean time, here's how the area looks so far:


Anyone who's interested in either a York or a Selby mapping party, please post up a comment either here or on the OpenStreetMap wiki pages (York; Selby) and lets see if we can't arrange something.

Having recently come across OpenStreetMap via Imran, I thought I'd head over for the Leeds Mapping Party, arranged by Tim "Chippy" Waters, who I'd previously met at OpenCoffee {Quattro}.

Most people seemed to be walking or cycling (or perhaps on the bus), but I wanted to cover off some of the villages on the eastern edge of Leeds. I also spotted that the A63 stops near Colton (M1 J46, or specifically the A63/A642 roundabout), only last time I drove down it I could swear it went from their on to Selby, so this was clearly a target too.

A days driving round West and North Yorkshire (with Jenny making excellent notes - even whilst doing laps of roundabouts!) and we've covered bits of the M1 (missing slip roads and the missing junction 47), the A63 out to Selby, completed the missing bits of the A19 between Escrick and Riccall and the A162 at Towton, the A642 and A655 between the A63 and M1, roads between Scholes, Barwick-in-Elmet, Aberford, Micklefield, Kippax, Thorner, Sherburn-in-Elmet, Cawood, Ozendyke, Ryther, Ulleskelf and Church Fenton. The routes were recorded using my GlobalSat BT308 Bluetooth GPS Receiver with a Nokia N73 and the Nokia Sports Tracker software, and esported to GPX format.

Of course, that's the easy bit - we now need to use those tracks (and Jenny's notes) to edit the map. We've made a start, and I think I'm getting the hang of JOSM, although it has it's little "quirks".

When we've finished, and when the revisions have been rendered, I'll try and post a before and after view of the map. Plus I've got a couple of photos from the morning meetup at Starbucks on Albion Street (sorry we didn't make it back again!).

Meanwhile, it's 03:33, and time for bed I think!