Greetings.. I wanted to bring to the attention of Vancouver Island mappers a source of some trail data in the Nanaimo area that I don't feel competent to handle myself. On a recent vacation visit to friends in Nanaimo, I learned that an association called the Back Country Horsemen of British Columbia have surveyed many of their customary riding trails around McKay Lake, resulting in a shapefile that they are prepared to make available to OSM.
Originally, hearing about this shapefile, and expecting just a few trails clustered around the lake, I offered to import the data to OSM myself, but was surprised to find that it described quite a large network of trails covering a significant area. On reflection, given that I'm based in the SF Bay area in CA, and have zero local knowledge, I abandoned that idea. With the permission of my contact in the association, I'm asking if any local mappers might be interested in looking at the data with a view to importing it to OSM. The GPS survey appears to have been carefully done, and displayed in JOSM it conforms closely to those parts of the trails that are visible in imagery. The downside is that information describing physical characteristics (type of highway: path, track, road?; width, surface, smoothness, etc) is mostly absent. As is information about permissions (horse, bike, ATVs, private or public, etc), jurisdiction, and supporting amenities (eg, car parks, signage, water). Some of the trails do have names. So clearly some digging or surveying for the missing data would be necessary. (Possibly some association members might be willing to help, but I didn't bring up the possibility). But the point is, that this data describes real trails that are currently in use for equestrian recreation. And I believe (but am not certain) that the Trans-Canada trail (Great Trail?) intersects this trail network. So that's it... Anyone who is interested in looking into this source should feel free to contact Lynn deVries of Back Country Horsemen of BC at nese...@gmail.com<mailto:nese...@gmail.com> who can provide a copy of the shapefile. Best.. Doug Hembry
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