Their has been significant activity in the County permitting system relating to the long dormant Columbia Place project, including new building permit applications and approval progress on others. One of the first projects approved under the Columbia Pike Form Based Code back in 2009, Columbia Place ran afoul of the financial crisis and did not begin construction. There is no word on when construction might begin, but the activity certainly bodes well for movement on the project. The project consists of 2,960 square feet of retail, 14 residential condo units and 8 townhouses on the empty parcel of land behind...

This is part II in a series on improving bikeplanner.org by updating the underlying OpenStreetMaps mapping data. See Part I for the background. Adding Trails to Bikeplanner.org via OpenStreetMaps Step 1 - Find a place that needs changing For this tutorial, I'll add the trail through Rock Springs park which connects the broken piece of George Mason Drive between Yorktown Blvd and Little Falls Rd. As you can see in this bikeplanner.org screenshot - no trail: Step 2 - Start the Editor Same as our previous tutorial, open up OpenStreetMap.org and find the spot in question. Then we go to the edit...

In case you missed the announcement, there's a new tool for planning bike trips: bikeplanner.org Unlike Google Maps, bikeplanner.org uses map data from OpenStreetMaps which is essentially the Wikipedia of map data.  Anyone can go in and add or update information on the map.  According to developer OpenPlans, bikeplanner.org refreshes their map data every two weeks. If bikeplanner.org isn't giving you the results you expect, it is likely due to deficiencies in the underlying map data.  Editing OpenStreetMaps data isn't hard (and it can be kind of addictive) here's a tutorial on how to get started. Before I start, a few...