The Road to Somewhere...

Open geographic data sources are great, but there are pitfalls...Take roads, for example.  Many GIS files for roads are created for different reasons and different periods of time.  Precision roads for navigation can be pricey.  The choice of road files can have a direct impact on the project you are working on.  The below shows roads from the U.S. Census Bureau (red) compared against the center line file from an open city data warehouse (black). The census data actually have a line/road going through the sports stadium.  In some places, red lines appear where there are no black lines and vice versa.