OpenDataPhilly Updates and other Government GIS News

Among the new data accessible through OpenDataPhilly: bike racks, census data, buildings on the Registry of Historic Places, impervious surfaces, and schools.

- Technically Philly

The Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for FedNor [regional development org in Ontario, Canada], chaired today the first meeting of an advisory panel of leading experts to provide the Government with advice and guidance on its Open Government activities.

Among the members: Alex Miller, President and Founder, ESRI Canada, Alex Howard of O'Reilly, and Vivek Kundra of Salesforce.com.'

- press release

GCN looks at the state of geoportal.gov and how EPA, NOAA and USDA are planning to use it.

- GCN

Sacramento Green Map and other Government GIS News

...a new website that showcases Sacramento County’s green strategies, achievements and helpful information. The website – Green Sacramento County – features an interactive map to pinpoint green activity and provides constituents with green news, tips and resources.

You can choose different base maps including Google and Esri streets.

- Sacremento Press

The board [Coweta County, GA] approved an agreement with TomTom North America for GIS data. The county has agreed to provide the GIS data to the GPS and mapping companies for free in order to help speed the updates reflecting the new names of Walt Sanders Memorial Drive (International Park) and Walt Sanders Memorial Court (Enterprise Court).

- Times Herald

In 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) launched the National Broadband Map (NBM), a tool local governments can use to determine the level broadband access in their communities. Join [National League of Cities] NLC and NTIA on January 25 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time for a webinar, entitled The National Broadband Map: An Economic Development Tool for Cities which will show how cities can use this tool and provide feedback so it can be further enhanced to suit their needs.

- NLC.org

[Ottawa/Carleton] OC Transpo [Ontario, CA] should open its bus-location data to outside programmers the same day it launches its own application to tell riders when their buses are due, says Councillor Stephen Blais, and he intends to present a motion to the city's transit commission at its next meeting on Thursday to force the company to do it.

- Ottawa Citizen

Update 2: Esri Opens its ArcGIS Online Data for Free for All Uses*

Esri has released a full Q & A at the ArcGIS Online Blog.  

--- update 2/20/11 ----

Update: Faridur Rahman Choudhury, a blogger, offers the text of the e-mail sent out. Matt Artz's GIS and Science blog (not an Esri blog, but he works there: "the postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Esri’s positions, strategies, or opinions.") also has the text.  I am not on the e-mail list in question, it seems.

And, while the data access is free (much of the time), the APIs to access the datasets are not always free.

--- original post 2/19/11 ---

To quote the ArcGIS Online page:

ArcGIS Online map services are available at no cost regardless of use.

However it seems high volume users will still to pay some fees (FAQ):

Yes, ArcGIS Online map services are available at no cost to all users who use less than 50,000,000 transactions per year. High volume users, using over 50,000,000 transactions per year, will be required to purchase ArcGIS Data Appliance for on-premises use or contract with Esri Professional Services or their local Esri distributor for a managed services environment to support their volume consumption requirements. 

Back in 2009 I wrote in some detail about the "freeness" of the Esri APIs for the datasets and the datasets themselves.

This change means that now non-commercial use of the APIs is ok if you don’t own ArcGIS Server (whether you are a non-profit or commercial entity). You can use the APIs to hit the free ArcGIS Online data, per its licensing (most is free for non-commercial use, but there’s a fee for commercial use) but all users must pay for premium data. You can also use the APIs to hit any ArcGIS published data to which you have access. 

I learned of this via Pierre Crevoisier (@pcrevoisier) and Brian Timoney (@briantimoney) who offer these assessments respectively:

ESRI is changing its politic. ArcGIS Online #map services are available at no cost regardless of use. ...

ESRI freeing tiles a) response to competition--Mapquest, GeoCommons, et al b) cartography as competitive differentiator

It seems the news was dropped on Twitter by @martenhogeweg at 6pm EST on Friday night. It seems all "hot news" comes from Marten...I'm glad he joined the comm team.