Navigation quirk - major tourist road not found in Canada
  • Vote Up0Vote Down viragoredviragored
    Hi all - I'm fairly new with trying out Navigator free.  I'm trying to set up some routes before going to Canada soon for a driving trip through the Rockies.  The route I want to take is from a hotel in the town of Lake Louise to a hotel in Jasper.  The calculated route wants me to drive back out of the mountains almost to Calgary, then drive up the plains before entering the mountains again.  What I actually want is to take Highway 93 (the tourist route called Icefields Parkway) which goes directly from Lake Louise to Jasper.  

    I've adjusted the 'car' settings from the default to take small roads, but the calculated route remains the same, taking me out to the plains.  

    Trying to force a waypoint by clicking a location on Icefields Parkway from the map and adding that as a waypoint produces a 'route not found' error.  

    Any suggestions for how to get the navigator to take Hwy 93 would be greatly appreciated.  Hopefully this link will take you to a screenshot of the roundabout route..



  • 9 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down tomastomas
    there seems to be problem with free map data, close to highway 11
  • Vote Up0Vote Down viragoredviragored
    I guess that is something not easily fixed from the other side of the world?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hvdwolfhvdwolf
    It has nothing to do with a small road or so. It's a primary road.
    OSM mentions that there is a gate at this location on highway 93.

    A gate is a barrier (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:barrier=gate) and that's why Navigator leads you over another road.

    Removing the gate from the road "from this side of the world" is easy enough, but I don't have the local knowledge.
    Is there really a gate or something else, therefore incorrectly tagged? Is it just an error and should it be next to the road or is it a small (service) road leading off the 93 closed with a gate?

    Also: A barrier should have an access tag as well to mention which traffic can use it (or not at all)

    Someone should take a look over there :)

    EDIT: As it is called "Icefields Parkway", is it closed during winter? And therefore: should it have a "conditional restriction" tag (no acces from November-March or something like that)?

  • Vote Up0Vote Down viragoredviragored
    As I'm a beginner here, I hope a basic question or two will be OK.  And I would welcome links to helpful pages where I can learn more and achieve what I want.  

    Would I be able to fix my immediate problem easily by editing the downloaded map on my phone, to remove the gate?  If so, which (Windows 7) tools should I use?  I've installed JOSM but find it won't read the map file from the phone (canada_osm.mca) and Google hasn't helped me find an editor for this type of file. 

    I live in New Zealand and have no first-hand information about the road.  In case it's of interest, the wikipedia page for Icefields Parkway is here.  I've signed up to Open Map Foundation and will check if the gate is actually there and what the story is when I'm driving past, and submit an edit to the base map if appropriate.  

    Thanks in advance for any pointers to what I should do next.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hvdwolfhvdwolf
    If you are sure you can drive there in the period you will visit the region, but you don't know about the local conditions, I would simply create a waypoint/destination/favourite 100 meters (or so) in advance of the gate. And after the gate create a new destination.

    It should be possible as map.project-osmr.org simply creates a route, also with a few quirks though.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hvdwolfhvdwolf
    I'm using Navigator Free and another navigation app, and the other app also calculates the route simply and completely over the 93.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down tomastomas
    with TomTom maps on Navigator route goes through highway 93 as well
  • Vote Up0Vote Down viragoredviragored
    Thanks, hvdwolf, for the simple suggestion of splitting the route either side of the gate!  Much easier than editing a map ;)   I'm leaving on holiday in a just couple of weeks so the road should still be open.  If not, we have a plan B in place.  And my navigator waypoints database now includes a spot either side of that gate.  

    By the by, and completely off topic, having discovered the open map foundation I've spent a happy hour at lunch time adding some details from the area where I live that I hope will benefit visitors to our neck of the woods.  So I'll be confident about how to edit that gate on the source map when I've found the facts.  

    Cheers everyone
  • Vote Up0Vote Down viragoredviragored
    In case anyone's coming back for a look at this thread, I've driven past the gate in question. It's a pole barrier, lowered when the road needs to be closed because of snowfall. I've updated the data on the openstreetmap.org web site to show that the gate is normally open. There's also another identical gate further north from the one that hvdwolf spotted, a bit south of the town of Jasper. That too was shown as normally closed, so I've updated the map data for that too. Hopefully future travellers will not be as confused as I was.

    And if you get a chance to take the Icefields Parkway, take it - it's spectacular.

    Thanks everyone for the help.
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