Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a federal program to encourage and provide funding for improving pedestrian and cyclist access to schools [1][2][3]. Municipalities that wish to apply for the program need to provide maps showing existing walking and biking facilities, as well as barriers to safe travel, possible infrastructure improvements, etc. It seems OSM could help a great deal with this goal. Unfortunately, the Virginia DOT reference guide [4] says "If GIS support is not available, consider using Google Maps or a similar tool, to show aerial view."
Is anyone aware of any municipalities that have used OSM for creating a SRTS travel plan? I could imagine a great deal of useful visualization and analytical tools that could be created to aid in this process. One such (web?) service could take school attendance boundaries, find all housing units contained, and present a heat map showing what areas are in walking or biking distance using actual routes. -Josh [1]: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/saferoutes/ [2]: http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/ [3]: http://www.saferoutespartnership.org/ [4]: http://www.vdot.virginia.gov/programs/resources/srts_assets/srts_STP_Reference_Guide.pdf _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
