Israel City Streets

superware · 2010-09-24T06:37:43.000Z

Hello all,

I’m looking for a way to get streets per city, problem is most Israeli cities doesn’t have their boundaries defined. Isn’t this a community top priority? In many cases a street is an “orphan” entity which can’t really be related to anything else.

If when working on streets mapping, users were instructed to defining “is_in” per street, then now it would have been possible to roughly convert that to city boundaries while removing the (now useless) “is_in”.

A way to get things moving is preparing an automated process were city boundaries are defined according to existing streets in a certain radius from city center, while there are no near cities OR a minimum corridor around the streets which doesn’t intersect with other streets/cities (“lonely” city).

What do you think?

Thanks,
Superware

Mr_Israel · 2010-09-24T09:24:52.000Z

Hello Superware,

of course its very hard for Israel Mappers to define city borders, as we are not even able to define the country border
(just joking)

Actually I didn’t knew about the need of the is_in definition. But I will try to add it in the future.

Beside that, I have nothing against a automatic definition. Better than nothing.

I like the idea of getting all streets per city.
The next part should be to get the list of streets in a city by the government and compare that lists again each other and find out what streets are missing.

talkat · 2010-09-25T16:12:48.000Z

superware:

I’m looking for a way to get streets per city

If when working on streets mapping, users were instructed to defining “is_in” per street, then now it would have been possible to roughly convert that to city boundaries while removing the (now useless) “is_in”.

What do you think?

Welcome to OSM!

It was already discussed here.
The “is_in” is problematic, and boundary place polygons help here, as well as have other benefits.

I can also note that in recent months a lot of boundary place polygons were added to the map.
Even villages get boundary place polygons nowadays.

talkat.

Mr_Israel · 2010-09-27T06:51:42.000Z

I have started to add boundary place polygons too as many places ass possible.
I will focus on that in the next weeks. Its not going to be very detailed but its better than nothing.

superware · 2010-09-27T09:02:17.000Z

I’m glad I had the opportunity to raise this issue here.

Mr_Israel, do you think it’s a good idea to do something we know isn’t going to be accurate? correcting it later on might be a difficult task.

Have you ever tried petitioning to government or local authorities regarding this issue? it’s clear they have the data, and probably the copyrights, but regarding city boundaries (which by the way can’t be defined by roads, or anything else for that matter) might be something they’ll be able to provide.

We want the real boundaries because they might contain empty areas where future construction is planned, so maintaining these boundaries in the future will be easier (I guess they don’t change too often, or at least much slower than city development). Am I right?

Mr_Israel · 2010-09-27T12:00:09.000Z

Hi Superware,

I think its better to have a starting than to try get it right away the perfect way. When I started with OSM in Israel I remember how I added parts of the Highway 4 to the map. Of course without GPS tracks!
Today there are very accurate and every exit is defined even with the name [Talkat ]. In some areas there will be people defining the city borders very accurate in some areas nobody will touch it for years and it will stay not wrong.

My opinion: Better start something not accurate than not adding it at all to the map.
Of course I should add a note, saying its just guessing.

Regarding the government . Please try. Till today we didn’t get anything from the government. There are discussion threads with this topic here.

superware · 2010-10-07T07:39:46.000Z

Hi Mr_Israel,

For example, I have found http://www.vaada-ono.co.il/?CategoryID=0&ArticleID=50&Page=1 (click center map). I spoke with Ruti (Zoning Department Manager) and after I explained about OpenStreetMap she said that map is ok to use.

Can you please apply these boundries to Kiryat Ono? should I continue searching for such data?

Thanks,
Superware

talkat · 2010-10-07T13:40:51.000Z

superware:

I have found http://www.vaada-ono.co.il/?CategoryID=0&ArticleID=50&Page=1 (click center map). I spoke with Ruti (Zoning Department Manager) and after I explained about OpenStreetMap she said that map is ok to use.

Can you please apply these boundries to Kiryat Ono? should I continue searching for such data?

This is good, and having an open channel with the Zoning Department Manager is very helpful.

Best would be to get it in a machine-readable format.
e.g. a list of nodes with latitude and longitude, os some shape file, or anything that we could convert to OSM format.

Taldor (an IT cmpany doing many projects for cities around Israel) is signed on that map.
Maybe they would be willing to supply such an information?

talkat.

Mr_Israel · 2010-10-07T21:03:35.000Z

Hi superware,

the website is Hebrew only (that I cant read). I dont know what you mean with “center map”.
Currently I don’t even know where Kiryat Ono is

superware · 2010-10-08T14:00:24.000Z

Mr_Israel see http://www.vaada-ono.co.il/ViewImage.asp?Image=_Uploads/dbsArticles/merhav08.jpg, the blue line (two areas) surrounds Kiryat Ono’s development zone (I guess it’s the same as city boundries, talkat?)

Mr_Israel · 2010-10-10T18:02:13.000Z

sorry, but I dont see a way to use this without JOSM.
I using Potlatch only.

Mr_Israel · 2010-11-08T16:00:33.000Z

I see more and more city, village etc. boundaries in Israel.

I have focused on this topic and added also a lot of boundaries in central Israel. I think Israel is after one moth in a lot better condition in this topic.

Still missing city boundaries for following cities :

Kfar Saba
Migdal
Hod Hasharon (and all places around)
Petach Tikwa (and all places around)
Ramat Hasharon (and all places around)

BTW: Thank you superware for pointing on this issue.