Defining Road Suffixes and other Government GIS News
Franklin County, MO has nailed down one part of its addressing scheme, the one related to "road name suffixes, descriptions and abbreviations. On the list are:
alleys, avenues, boulevards, branches, circles, courts, coves, crossings, drives, forks, lanes, loops, paths, places, points, roads, runs, spurs, streets, terraces, trails, walks and ways
While this sounds like a long list, there's a more complete one help by the Addressing Authority. And, assignments must follow defintions assigned in this document (pdf). They are kind of funny! The local paper says the change was made to help the GIS department, but standardized names helps in so many other ways, like say 911 response, that I'm disappointed that was not noted.
Davis, CA has a new traffic map that includes historic data on the number of trips on individual roads, car and bike accidents, parking restrictions. Tech? ArcGIS Online but I could not get it to work on Firefox on Ubuntu. The other city maps are built on Google Maps. The data are under a creative commons license.
Boone and Marshall counties in Iowa are discussing sharing the work and salary of Marshall county's current GIS director. While some point to the likelihood Marshall will not get its own work done, the director notes the way the counties do business is like "apples and oranges." It's not clear if the two counties use different software or even have two implementations. If nothing else, this arrangement suggests GIS professionals do need to be ready for anything.
