OpenStreetMap

backpacking philippines's Diary

Recent diary entries

the underpass opened last friday but when i tried to pass by this morning, i saw traffic buildup…made a quick u-turn towards roces

is it just confusion on the first monday it was opened or just the usual pasaway bus and jeepney drivers clogging the ibabaw portion

will again attempt to pass by and update OSM. seems i’m the only OSMapper near the area

it’s just now that i acknowledge it but i lost my dear 2.5 years old garmin nuvie.

it’s probably taken at a casa where i had Scarlett’s 10k PMS. no other people can take it from my car, i remember forgetting to take it out of the car during the PMS

i’m currently using my iPhone but i still prefer the Garmin for mapping/taking tracks.

i will need to again ask someone to buy one for me in the US, handcarried as Garmins sold here are ridiculously expensive, more than double the price :(

i visited bato, leyte a few weeks ago and there was still no hi-res imagery for this area when I checked and OSM has just the major roads

now there’s satt image and a mapper beat me to it. I don’t agree with the road tags with most set to secondary and tertiary though. most of them are residential with just the main highway as primary plus the road to the port of bato

also noticed another mapper is changing the road tags for Surigao del Sur changed main roads of some towns from secondary to residential. entire towns were enclosed with land use tagged as residential areas oblivious of the fact that there are commercial areas on major roads :(

the problem with Open Source :(

lost of misplaced U-turn slots there, the one in front of SM masinag is closed.
the road is still under re-blocking and may still change though at least I see improvements after months of passing there

will just try to correct after its finished...

i wonder how it is all the way to Infanta, Quezon. the segment in Sampaloc, Tanay, Rizal is concrete

I've decided to use my GPS zoomed in and configured with the most details while driving on heavy traffic.

Once i again tried to pass by EDSA, noticed lots of unmarked buildings and land use besides lacking POIs.

A few days ago, i began the project to make driving along EDSA from QC to Makati not look like an empty space with a labyrinthine network of roads.

Heavy traffic is beneficial to mappers but comes with a high price tag due to fuel consumption. I can take pictures of bldngs and POIs with my iphone. will start with polygons of buildings and land use then update the names

Expect improvements mostly for the southbound lane as i pass there twice a week in the morning on weekdays; other days i use my circuitous route via san juan and mandaluyong.

EDSA Boni Serrano

Posted by backpacking philippines on 8 December 2011 in English.

there's a strange u-turn slot under boni serrano on edsa from northbound to southbound EDSA permitted only from 5pm to 6am the following day

i tried to use it but have yet to test the routing since i don't go that way.

also, the last time i checked, there are no more u-turn slots, except that weird slot, there but will have to check. might probably pass there tomorrow night just to see.

i remember i used p tuazon u-turn slot for the ones below boni serrano were closed by the mmda

please check routing or presence of the slots

Location: Socorro, Cubao, Quezon City, Eastern Manila District, Metro Manila, 1109, Philippines

EDSA Boni Serrano

Posted by backpacking philippines on 8 December 2011 in English.

there's a strange u-turn slot under boni serrano on edsa from northbound to southbound EDSA permitted only from 5pm to 6am the following day

i tried to use it but have yet to test the routing since i don't go that way.

also, the last time i checked, there are no more u-turn slots, except that weird slot, there but will have to check. might probably pass there tomorrow night just to see.

i remember i used p tuazon u-turn slot for the ones below boni serrano were closed by the mmda

please check routing or presence of the slots

Location: Socorro, Cubao, Quezon City, Eastern Manila District, Metro Manila, 1109, Philippines

tried fixing batangas routing issues...
logged in using google chrome and potlatch2

zoomed in to batangas city near cathedral
but when I clicked Edit, the map showed the novaliches area, the area
i visited earlier...repeated the process but again got to novaliches

potlatch2's bug or chrome or both? too lazy and sleepy to try in IE and Firefox

anyway, noticed the zoom bar is in the top left corner of the edit screen...
at last! :P

just came back from batangas city...nice trip and hassle-free due to the SLEX-Startoll link

visited batangas cathedral and noticed untagged one-way streets there in OSM...
will update later...

also, startoll is a single-carriageway from Lipa exit up to batngas city might delete one carriageway to correct

lots of backlogs for me due to weekly trips: solano (NV), Carcanmadcarlan in surigao, bolinao pangasinan, paracale camnorte then this btangas trip.

next week i'll be in loay, bohol.

just came back from cantilan Surigao del Sur (also passed by the mines of Claver, Surigao del Norte loved by the NPA) via Surigao City

Surigao City lacks POIs plus most of the roads are tagged as secondary. was only able to visit as far inside as jollibee and city hall but noticed the lacking detail.

i think i'm going back to cantilan within 6 months for unfinished business, done exploring CarCanMadCarLan, will do Surigao City and Siargao on my next trip if approved :P

will do the "re-routing" for surigao too based on my initial observations

i fixed numerous errors in legarda flyover along with adding missing u-turn slots underneath plus missing streets also under nagtahan bridge.

there's an error for legarda i've yet to correct pending verification. legarda is a single-carriageway from bustillos (earnshaw) up to the foot of the flyover. i've lived in the area in the past though it may have changed now. under the bridge is a basketball court so deleted the roadlink. added a u-turn slot on Forbes but i only approximated the location (it's where the Balic-balic jeepneys pass by so i know it's really there)

there's also a missing crossing for Pureza en route to PUP.

renamed aguila to j.p. laurel (error there) plus downgraded it to tertiary. added traffic lights at the intersection

hope someone can verify if legarda is now indeed a dual-carriageway. i avoid the area due to traffic, that's why, i know the alternate routes...batang sampaloc for 10 years that I am :P

looks like i'm going to finish Roosevelt Avenue from Quezon avenue to EDSA and EDSA near my home to Monumento, even up to Cubao...

I discovered a few short roads near my home missing on OSM

the only major routing error i found recently is Betty Go-Belmonte's mising crossing Aurora Blvd and also untagged as one-way street as well as the narrow yet useful K-3rd street near kamuning that you can use as detour to avoid traffic heavy EDSA Cubao

slowly identifying buildings and POIs on EDSA and Roosevelt

i still prefer hunting down routing errors though :P

I pass by quezon avenue from West Avenue up to Araneta everyday and now I got good news and bad news at the busy intersection where jeepneys create a terminal at the corner blocking cars from turning right to araneta after the u-turn near sto domingo church.

with the start of construction, i'm looking for alternate routes, though I know one via Kaliraya (where I passed by twice already when i see heavy traffic ahead of araneta), the street's actually too narrow for a residential road due to presence of flea market, informal settlers, and lots of pedicabs and tricycles.

Kaliraya would have been a very nice alternate road if not for the pedestrians and pedicabs occupying the street making it like a one-lane street only where you risk your car being sideswiped by pedicabs or you hit slow moving pedestrians walking on the street.

another alternate route is via Roces then morato, e rodriguez then balete drive where you end up on Santolan or just via Gilmore to Ortigas Extension.

I love to experiment to test OSM routing (thus detect errors) but the routes are slow due to presence of jeepneys.

I think EDSA is still better and reliable, especially when it's raining :P

an unexpected request from wifey to drop by my new home in Cainta before heading home to QC made me think of a way how to get there on a route i passed by only a couple of times when i commuted from crossing to tanay to siniloan bfore paete

I only checked the roads some days ago on how to get there via the lower towns of rizal (morong, binangonan, angono, taytay et al) but not the excat route from angono to floodway

I blindly followed OSM and got me there without a hassle except heavy traffic at the intersection of east floodway, barkadahan bridge and hway 2000 due to lack of traffic signals or enforcer while people in the area just look around at the traffic jam.

i intend to explore again the lower towns and find stopsovers as I've almost run out of restaurants to try along my usual route to paete

lastly, i checked the intersections and roads i added along floodway via Bing and they're all there. need to add street names when i pass by again. missing roads are somewhere near Baras plus mis-tagged tertiary roads in Tanay that are more like service roads due to being narrow made only for trikes

for people asking me about my Garmin on my dashboard, i always tell them i bought it not for me but for my direction-challenged wifey.

Sine i had it about 1.5 years ago, i've updated roads to/from my own makati slice i.e. salcedo village: missing roads, turn restrictions, missing u-turn slots, no crossings and one-way streets...also eliminated better looking yet inaccurate for Garmin the corners of dual-carriageways meeting a single-carriageway road (know why? found out Garmin routing algorithm doesn't like turns...it looks for the primacy of roads but avoids turns and corners even if it's farther (garmin set to faster route, not shortest route). OSM shoudld depict such corners as a Y rather than a T or a cross.)

As i told wifey she won't get lost going to my office in Makati from Quezon City, the day came when she used my dear Sakura with her brother to fetch me.

I was wrong.

with OSM in had, she got lost that made me wonder why the so many times i've tested the route to my office with no glitches, even from different approaces and routes, except some portions where GPS signals affected by tall buildings.

Upon "interrogation" I found out she doesn't understand the numbers on the top left corner of Nuvi that indicates the distance before turning left or right while her brother is "scared" of the one-way streets of Makati and can't figure out the GPS instructions too.

Conclusion: it's just the usual USER_ERROR :P

lakbay Rizal @150

Posted by backpacking philippines on 6 June 2011 in English.

with the release by the DOT of the 27 rizaliana sites, i counted only three sites that i haven't been to

no back credits there, i need to re-visit them just to complete the stamps on my passport...

but I think I can complete it again
i have an upcoming trip to Paracale in CamNorte where I can pass by Daet again
I can book a flight to Dipolog to visit the shrines there.
Calamba is just an easy trip for me as well as Malolos, Antipolo and San Fernando, Pampanga

Cebu is regular on my list (or I can drop by once the trip to Loay, Bohol is finalized) while Iloilo I can probably just spend from my own pocket...

hmmm...let's see. it's all so easy on paper and yet so hard when priorities in life are changing :(

stamps on my rizal@150 passport and traces for OSM :P