I’ve had a few requests to add trails in addition to the streets that already exist. If you’re interested in seeing trails added to CityStrides (or if you’re opposed to this idea), I’d like to hear from you.
I’m thinking of doing another round of data import to a new Trail data type. I think it should be a different percentage, so I’m picturing another tab next to Striders and Streets to list all the Trails.
The site is called CityStrides, so does it matter that I’m tacking on trails too? Arguably not, given ‘RunKeeper’ tracks swimming workouts.
Are there certain trails you would not want included?
Can you think of anything I haven’t thought of so far that could be either problematic or useful?
I’d need to determine the full list of tags that are applicable for Trails (and not Streets) from Hiking - OpenStreetMap Wiki (it might be justPath records)
People would need the ability to in/opt out of this
It’s very unlikely that I’ll implement this feature, due to the OpenStreetMap data for trails being unreliable. There’s no guarantee that the trails mapped in there are safe, accurate, or even present at all.
This forum software blocks replies when I close topics, though, so I’m leaving it open for now.
I like this idea. There are already some trails in CityStrides (if they fall within city limits). OpenStreetMap actually has a very nice database of trails…better than google maps in many cases.
For organization, maybe Country->State(Region)-> Trail is best. That way there could still be the challenge of trying to be the person who has run the most trails in a particular area. I would not associate them with a city because that takes away from the idea of trying to run everything within a particular city.
Another random thought is to have trails count as a separate category of “street” but still be included within cities (or the proposed regions outside of cities…). In fact, “buildings” and “landmarks” and “parks” could be separate categories also. But I’m not sure how you would be able to make a filter for those. Trail is easier…if it has “trail” in the name then it is a trail…at least most of the time. So for example, someone could be 23% done with a city…15% done with the “streets” and 25% done with the “trails”.
I like this idea too! Some states, such as CT have large networks of trails that are managed by a common entity. The CT Forest and Parks Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails Interactive Map | Connecticut Forest & Park Association have interactive maps which they may be willing to share. I am for the structure of Country >State> Trail. Don’t associate with Cities. It would also be cool to also show a percentage of each trail progressed. Some of the trails are 50 plus miles long. For regional trails such as the AT I think a State completion would serve as good mileposts. (I have gotten credit for running electrical power line easements)
It would also be helpful to be able to create trail routes as many of the trails do not have data points associated with them. This would allow runners to map out wilderness areas, and create maps of the trails. The total map view is already very helpful in mapping the major trails, but this would take it a step further. [perhaps this should be a separate thread?]
Well, if one would like to imp0ort trails from OSM, it is a type relation in OSM. this combines mapped entities of the type line (like roads, paths, tracks etc). The thing is, it should be well maintained to be usable. uncomplete relations don’t look good.
To get an idea check waymarkedtrails.org for some OSM rendering especially for hiking
I am not a typical trail runner but on occasions I walk or run outside the city. These walks/runs are just showed in Citystrides as every other wal run. So it is ok for me as it is. But i understand that for trailrunners it would be nice. The same pars pro toto, it would be wonderful if biking, skiing, swimming etc. could be incorporated BUT maybe it is cost a lot of time and pecunia
I already use Citystrides already for helping me keep track of new hiking trails. That would be sweet to include them as part of citystrides. “Naturestrides”? I bet a ton of fellow Coloradoans would start using Citystrides if that was a feature.
It is an interesting idea. I would be cautious that in some rugged areas (Colorado, Hawaii, etc) many trails can be quite extreme or and thus you have the risk of people putting themselves in exceptionally dangerous places seeking a node.
I support the idea wholeheartedly. But if not all trails, beacuse some are dangerous, it might be a way to use the “official” trails? As a Norwegian, I would love to run all the trails at ut.no (“kart”), for instance.
If I understand correctly this would also include city paths like bicycle paths of which there are many here in the Netherlands. They are more like streets than hiking trails, so the title might be a bit misleading. I would like to have those included though, but ideally as part of the streets. I assume it would mean only named ones?
i think less than 1% of the cyclepaths would have names. and you would import also the nice cycleways going through forests etc. More like trails then, but with cycable surfaces. For streets in a city (no trails then) to import them would mean a subquery, were highway = cycleway and name should not be used at all. I guess side effect would be that on lot’s of streets you would get 2 or 3 rows of nodes, since lots of cycleways are parallel on the streets already imported anyway.
I also love the idea. In fact I would recommend making trails more prominent on the maps in general. Its pretty hard to see the dashed lines and regardless I like to run them. If you made them a different component you could make them a different color node to get.
I know this is an absurdly old thread, but I do think this would really help grow the user base where I am in Colorado. Outside of Denver most of the runners here focus almost exclusively on trails. A lot of these are city parks, or one of the many state parks. I don’t know how feasible it is using the OSM organizational structure, but the idea of running / hiking every trail in our like 55 states parks sounds amazing.
The one major thing is that CS relies on names. A street/road/track needs to have name,so it can be put in the list of completed/uncompleted streets. And that is not the case normally for trails. Have you looked at wandrer.earth that do include all trails even without names?
Since naming trails and seperating them from each other to track them like streets is impossible, at least on a global basis, an idea could be to just track the total % of nodes (like hard mode for streets) of trails in a city/area. I guess this is what wander.earth does, import everything with the trail tag in OSM and just track individual nodes on both streets/trails
Trails probably would have to be kept in a seperate tab from streets anyway, so I don’t think people would be to mad about different calculations.
