This talk was transcribed.

In 2015 and 2016, I was involved in designing and building CaliParks.org, which includes an OpenStreetMap-based park map. I did that work first for Stamen Design and then for the nonprofit GreenInfo Network (which keeps the public protected lands data for all of California, calands.org).

Park officials in Marin County contacted us about the map showing closed trails (from OpenStreetMap) and those trails can be dangerous for people and damaging to wildlife (specifically endangered coho salmon). From there we tried retagging some trails, suggested a new way to tag paths, got criticized about how we did that (which is totally fine), and along the way started a good conversation about how to help connect the ““official”” parks mapping with the OpenStreetMap world.

In my talk, I will set up the specific challenge in CaliParks, but then use that as a lead in to the larger question of parks data and parks mapping. At the grassroots, I help run Nerds for Nature (nerdsfornature.org) where we’re planning some mapathon days at McLaren Park in SF this summer, including Mapillary mapping. At the national level, GreenInfo is a core player in development of next-gen Protected Areas Database of the United States, which will map virutally every park in the country in next 2 years. How can parks agencies benefit OpenStreetMap and how can OSM benefit parks agencies?”