Same vouch for the county/city borders, I think it’s cool to know where the neighborhoods of my city begin and end on the lifemap without being on the specific city page. I think these new maps have a lot of potential and cool to see the abundance of interactive feedback here - changing the map really brings everyone out.
Can’t wait until satellite view is back though, It’s such a useful and noticeably missing element at the moment!
I would acquiesce the city borders built into the map if the sidewalks and parking aisles are removed. As well as removing the clutter of buildings.
So far, I’m already loving the new style, and really like the addition of “political” boundaries.
Ideally, and as other people said before, the styling of footpaths and private driveways should be different.
I opened my map today to find a new look, no satellite option, horrible colors, no differentiation between streets and driveways and trails… AND it still hasn’t shown my lines on the map for my activity for today. It also only loads half the world… is this permanent?
I would also like to point out that, with the old map, Private streets were still visible and named but were displayed in a light grey color, while the public streets were in white.
I forget who said it, but the point was, if you are looking at a CS map, the focus should be on what needs to run*. There are other maps for other details. Keep the CS maps clean. This is especially true for people, like me (maybe only me) that often will print a map. For that reason I like maps that don’t require a lot of ink to print (though I do adjust print settings to cut down too).
And about the outline on the Node Hunter circles: First time I saw it thought it was an OSM thing. Or maybe it’s that Overpass Turbo script** that does the circles with outlines? So was expecting to something extra when I zoomed in. To me, it’s just more unneeded ink.
Bottom line: With each iteration above, it got better and better. Kudos James!
*And what CS thinks needs to be run, so if it’s not runnable, we can head over to OSM.
**OSM Basics See: “Did it work?”
@JamesChevalier I have no idea about how any of this works, but i found a nice style called MapTiler Terrain. https://openmaptiles.org/styles/#maptiler-terrain
I tried downloading the JSON and open it in https://maputnik.github.io/editor but no luck 
Here’s a priview of the style from my own hood, driveways and paths are different from streets
https://www.maptiler.com/maps/#topo//vector/17.6/12.512941/55.793658
I would be willing to pay a bit more to have the better map, personally 
Totally get the business side of it though!
My map changed yesterday and no longer shows the streets but a new type of view. Is this an update? Can I go back to the original map that really was more purposeful for streets? Thanks!!
I have to say that I’m on the other side of the fence on this one. CS has been a work in progress and has made leaps and bounds in progress over a very short time frame. I think we are limiting CS when when we cannot see the possibilities on our LifeMaps. Many us love to explore our areas by running things other than streets even though CS doesn’t currently keep track of each type of objective. These can include parks, trails, rail trails, street that are “private” but runnable. If I look forward in the future, I can see a day when you can see each activity in a different color. Maybe streets in purple, trails in green, and maybe even including red for cycling if your activities type is set to bike. We will never know what the possibilities are if we can’t see it on our maps. Some day in the future, I really would like to see all my activities using a single app.
Already getting much closer to what it use to be. Can the street lines stay white longer as zoomed out. Its so hard to see on my phone inside. I am not sure I could see it outside on even a cloudy day.
I vote keeping the boarder because it was something I needed. I was already putting all my gps files in a different website dérive. then downloading the image and photoshopping the boarder.
I dont mind the sidewalk lines. For me its a sigh of relief when I go somewhere and see I can run safely. So for planning it helps planning ahead of…oh run this side of the road.
Satellite view is also a must have. I use it almost every run. Nice to find parking lots to park in when possible.
Thank you James and sorry to be a big pain!
The next update will draw sidewalks (which are footway path in OSM) with a lighter dotted line
For CityStrides data: Someone needs to edit the two entry points in OSM to also be marked as access: private. The main road ( Way: West Sherbern Drive (276767835) | OpenStreetMap ) is tagged properly.
For map display: I’ll hunt around to see if I can style access: private with the same dotted line.
Agreed. The next version they’re restyled to match the previous map style.
For CityStrides data: those need to be tagged properly in OSM to be excluded here
For the map view: Sidewalks are already displayed as faint dotted lines. Some people use these. Parking aisles are currently in the service/track collection, which encompasses a lot of different ways - unless I can figure out how to single out parking aisles in Maputnik, these will have to stay.
I don’t think this new provider, Stadia Maps has a satellite option, so that’s going to be very difficult. I also have my eyes on Maptiler, which does have a number of nice base maps.
It’s regularly requested for people to be able to see city borders, so this is a huge win overall. I don’t expect I’ll be removing this feature.
This I’m unsure about. There may be people who get their bearings in the map via parks etc, and showing splotches of green on the map isn’t blocking anyone else’s use. I’ll wait to hear more feedback on this before taking action.
Yeah, building were removed in the last update
This is weird. I’m contacting their support team about this. You shouldn’t have to zoom into areas to see them, it should draw the global view properly.
Yeah, I’m still getting used to how it allows styling at multiple zoom levels…
I think I’ve heard two or three similar statements so far. Anyone else reading along who requires satellite view to this extent - speak up - your feedback heavily influences my efforts
Update: The latest version is released. Refresh your browser to get the style changes.
I have to say - thank you for being so quick to respond to our concerns! I just refreshed and got the latest, and it’s 100x better than the first time I saw the new map.
For me, satellite view is a must have, mostly when I’m trying to find if a busy street has sidewalks (since they’re not always shown on OSM). But if satellite view is not an option I guess I’d just use Google Maps for that function.
Just lending a few of my thoughts.
I value the seeing parks and schools on the map. Often these areas are where I start my run (and park) and having them visible on my map helps a lot with planning a route.
The political boundaries are very useful to see as well.
Looking around my area, I’m actually really happy with the current state of the map. My only criticism would be named trails could be darker and more prominent, as those are often common running routes.
Thanks for all the hard work!
For me, the new map looks great (although I haven’t planned or done any runs since it release)
I never use the satellite view in CS so I won’t miss it.
I love the new map as well. Having the dotted boundary lines for each town that makes up where I live is very nice. I also don’t miss the satellite view. Seldom used it past looking to see if some road that is listed in CS, but I don’t see on a run really exists. I tend to go to street view in Google to resolve those questions. Now, if you cold add a popup that shows you some information about the town you click on with number of streets, percent done, etc, that would be amazing. Again, thank you for all the effort and listening to all the suggestions.
Satellite view was always super useful for me. When planning a run, I can quickly toggle to see if a break in the road is something that I can run through, or need to run around because it’s behind a fence or something. Also it lets me check out a road to see if there are parking spots on the road so I can find a reasonable starting place. Obviously, this can can be done in google maps, but it’s much more convenient to do it right on my life map.
I mentioned hoping for the return of satellite view above but just want to explain my utility for it: Sometimes when I’m out on a run, especially in more rural areas, OSM is outdated or inaccurate and I’ll run on a road that disappears or was affected by some new construction. In that moment it’s really convenient to switch over to satellite view and see what the discrepancy is and how to re-route quickly and safely.
This actually happened on my run today, I was running alongside a large shopping mall in a new area and the road turned out to be a service road going into a restricted loading area that wasn’t properly marked as off-limits on OSM. To re-route I had to switch over to Google Maps to use their satellite view and see how to get back on public roads. A lot more tedious than tapping the Satellite View button with my phone already on the CS route page.
Another vote for keeping the political boundaries!
As for the satellite view, I am fine losing that function. I have always just used google maps to find parking, street view is a great tool that was never in CS anyway.
Really appreciate the effort you put into this website, Jim. Your willingness to hear our concerns is admirable.
How is the current version with regards to street name display at different zoom levels? Has that improved for you?