General Meeting - Annual Federal Agencies Presentations General Meeting FY 2007  FY 2006 FY 2005 FY 2004 FY 2003 FY 2002 FY 2001 FY 2000 FY 1999 FY 1998 CARTOGRAPHIC USERS ADVISORY COUNCIL (CUAC) 2004 MEETING MINUTES May 7, 2004 Bureau of the Census, Suitland MD CUAC Representatives Paige Andrew, Pennsylvania State University, SLA David Decklebaum, University of California, Los Angeles, WAML Donna Koepp, Harvard University, ALA/GODORT Mary McInroy, University of Iowa, ALA/GODORT Clara P. McLeod, Washington University, St. Louis, GSIS Bruce Obenhous, Virginia Tech, SLA John Olson, Syracuse University, ALA/MAGERT Joanne Perry, Pennsylvania State University, NACIS Daniel T. Seldin, Indiana University, NACIS Wangyal Shawa, Princeton University, ALA/MAGERT Christopher J. J. Thiry, Colorado School of Mines, WAML Linda Zellmer, Indiana University, GSIS Agency Presenters Doug Vandegraft, Chief Cartographer, Division of Realty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service John Hébert, Chief, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress Marian Brady, Data Access and Dissemination, U.S. Bureau of the Census Carol Brandt, GIS Program Manager, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation Milo Robinson, U.S. Geological Survey/Federal Geographic Data Committee Michael Cooley, Cooperative Topographic Mapping, U.S. Geological Survey Betsy Kanalley, Staff Cartographer Geospatial Services Group, U.S. Forest Service TC Evans, Deputy Superintendent of Documents, Information Dissemination Organization, USGPO Robin Haun Mohamed, Development Project Manager, USGPO Agenda: Friday May 7th Agency Reports 9:00 – 9:15 Welcome and introductions (co-chairs) 9:15 – 9:45 Doug Vandegraft - FWS 9:45 – 10:15 Milo Robinson - FGDC 10:15 – 10:30 Break 10:30 – 11:00 Michael Cooley - USGS 11:00 – 11:30 Carol Brandt - BTS 11:30 – 12:00 Betsy Kanalley - USFS 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch 1:00 – 1:30 John Hébert - LC 1:30 – 2:00 TC Evans/Robin-Haun Mohamed GPO 2:00 – 2:15 Break 2:15 – 2:45 2:45 – 3:15 Marian Brady - U.S. Census Bureau 3:15 – 4:30 CUAC Members Wrapup/Assignment Reminders 4:30 Adjourn Milo Robinson U.S. Geological Survey/Federal Geographic Data Committee Milo Robinson (formerly worked in the State of VT and now with FGDC for 5 years) represented the Federal Geographic Data Committee (http://fgdc.er.usgs.gov). Updating their activities with 2 major activities to be discussed at greater length: the longstanding Grant Program (which is currently open) and Future Directions Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC Director, couldn’t attend. He asked Milo to attend and sent his greetings. FGDC was realigned with the Geographic Information Office within USGS during the past few years, FGDC staff are employees of USGS, but the FGDC mission is more external than USGS’ mission and includes coordinating among all federal agencies. FGDC was established by OMB Circular A16 in 1990. Executive Order 12906, which established the NSDI in 1994, is now ten years old. FGDC in looking forward must also look back a bit and consider the changes in technology that have occurred. NSDI exists to help agencies share data and improve methods of data sharing. FGDC plans more outreach and more effort to craft a National Geospatial Strategy and implementation plan for FGDC to further the development of NSDI. The evolution of NSDI will depend upon the changing technologies, societal needs, and organizational relationships forged to promote data sharing. Future Directions: Look back but describe desired future state; identify 2-3 goals that need to be achieved; identify the factors that will contribute to achieving the goals; identify specific actions that need to be taken. Short term time frame and actionable items. Conducting interviews and facilitating group discussions; draft report & solicitation of comments from community; final report (due June); final report to FGDC Steering Committee (June). Check the FGDC Web site. Early input from the user community indicated that there was overlap between The National Map and Geospatial One-Stop, which are seen as competing programs. Through a discussion at a meeting in Charleston, regarding this and “A Clear Vision of the NSDI,” an article written by Mark DeMulder, Barbara Ryan, Ivan DeLoatch, Hank Gary, and Karen Siderelis in Geospatial Solutions (April 1, 2004, URL: http://www.geospatial-online.con/geospatislsolutions/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=89953 -- USGS leadership has tried to clarify goals, build on strengths and complimentary programs. Future Directions Now – NSDI FGDC – coordination, standards, setting policy, & promoting education, metadata training *Geospatial One-Stop –e-Gov. Promote discovery of data, providing access to a wide variety of content. *The National Map – more traditional/changing paradigm. Focus on topographic content, applications, & USGS scientific datasets (geology, biology, water resources etc.). Draft Goals to focus a Geospatial Strategy for the Nation: Forging Partnerships with Purpose: by 2007, the NSDI is guided by a governance model that includes all representative stakeholder groups. For example, the standards process moved to an ANSI process to make it more inclusive of the non-federal stakeholder groups. Sub-goals: restructuring agreements, better agreements to work with private sector, engage people not already engaged in spatial community with FGDC. Making Framework Real: by 2007 the nation will have a program in place for generating the framework data themes that fosters the processes for nationwide collection, documentation, access, and utilization of data. Framework, in a big sense, is meant to describe a sustaining relationship to develop data at the local level; it includes the basic datasets you need to use. It also means the business process whereby local government information can go up to state level and state level can go up to federal level; the private sector has a role in there and federal data can make its way down. A lot of what has emerged is the basic framework datasets (7): geodetic control, ortho-imagery, elevation, transportation, government units, cadastral, and hydrography. The focus is on getting some of these data sets up and running; making progress engaging the states and territories, & promoting effective data sharing. Sup-goals: focus on implementing the standards; transportation standards have been developed and need implementation. Want real data being transferred between Federal agencies and to their partners. Delivering the Message: by 2007, the NSDI will be recognized as the primary source for relevant and dependable geospatial data. Example: Dieticians have the need to know about GIS now appearing in the professional journal of dieticians. Geo-spatial One-Stop was mentioned. This is one of the goals, to have the use of GIS expanding into other likely disciplines, delivering the message out to groups with which we are not as familiar. FGDC Future Directions Plan will be up on the FGDC Web site; comments are being sought and needed; report to be released on June 15th. Questions/discussion: Framework data: Doesn’t explicitly say what scale is desired, but should be the best available. In an urban area the scale would be larger, while in a rural area it would be smaller scale. That trend is emerging from the states anyway. More of a concept than a specific definition-- it is up to the provider to determine scale as no one scale has been specified. The Clearinghouse is the foundation for Geospatial One-stop activity. One-stop provides front end access and helps build the clearinghouse, making it easier for non-geospatial people to use. FGDC is working closely with One-stop so very little difference between Clearinghouse and One-stop data Regarding Z39.50 -- Existing standards will be used – Geo-spatial One-stop will adopt national metadata standard as will all federal agencies. Plan for Future Directions is on Web site, with a June 15th release date for draft. CAP Program CAP funding opportunities listed and discussed. Application deadline is June 4th. Check Web site (http://www.fgdc.gov) for fuller information. Category 1 – Metadata Creation and Implementation. Funding up to $9000 is available; seed funds for new organizations that haven’t been doing metadata. Objectives are to get metadata created and made available via the NSDI Clearinghouse and ensure that metadata is following standard practices. There are a lot of trainers and metadata tools out there that can be brought into the organization and the application is short an uncomplicated. Category 2 – Metadata Training Assistance Intended to provide assistance to metadata trainers with funding up to $30,000 available. Must be available to travel regionally & nationally and have metadata expertise. Objectives are that organizations are trained and metadata is created and served up through clearinghouse. Intended for state-level clearinghouses to send out personnel as trainers within the state/region. Category 3 – NSDI Institution Building. This is a new category. Support provided to consortia to develop or strengthen existing multi-organizational strategic plans for development and maintenance of shared digital geographic resources. Foster the establishment of cross-organizational (working outside normal community group) efforts that develop and advance the NSDI within a specific geographic area. Funding proposals up to $15,000, fairly flexible as to proposals. Eligibility: consortia of public and non-profit organizations. Envisions programs such as workshops, speakers brought in for presentations. Category 4 – Clearhinghouse Integration with OpenGIS Web Mapping Service Objective: deploy web map and feature client and server software for linking to and viewing geospatial data from metadata in the NSDI Clearinghouse utilizing embedded URL map requests. Operating web map server software extendable to support Open GIS Web Mapping (or feature) Standard 1.0. FGDC assists in providing training and technical referrals. Funding is available up to $10,000. More advanced grant than previous categories. Category 5 – Establishing Framework Data Services using OpenGIS Web Feature Service Specification focused on emerging standards. The goal for projects in this category is to deploy OGC Web Feature Service (and optionally, client) interfaces to respond to Web “POST” requests for framework data, and to identified theme in the format given by OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Version 3.0. FGDC assists in providing training and technical referrals. Funding is available up to $75,000. Advanced grant. U.S. Department of Transportation has already implemented and delivered content data according to content standards at this time. Category 6 – The National Map FGDC has been working cooperatively with Geospatial One-stop and The National Map to develop issues. This is a new approach which is fairly well known in geospatial circles. The hope is that other agencies will want to participate. Projects shall have an outcome of providing sustained operational capabilities to maintain and update data over an organization’s or consortium’s geographic area of interest and to provide access to them through The National Map. Of special interest are organizations or consortia whose geographic area of interest covers a “large area” -- for instance, a state or group of states and or/one or more “urban areas”. Every state has a USGS state liaison and if funding is sought, the USGS state liaison must be included in the proposal. Funding is available up to $75,000. Check out the FGDX Web site. $1.55 million is available to be divided among the grant requestors. (Submitted by Joanne M. Perry) Doug Vandegraft, Chief Cartographer U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Realty Doug titled his talk, The Status of Digital Boundary / Digital Land Status Program He defined a digital boundary as a digitized version of the “approved acquisition” boundary, which is the line(s) encompassing those lands that have been approved for acquisition by the FWS. There can be a variety of possible ways to gain approval: Executive Order Regional Director Approved Public Land Order Congressionally Approved FWS Director Approved Migratory Bird Conservation Commission Land and Water Conservation Fund He defined digital land status as digital lines reflecting those parcels of land within the approved acquisition boundary in which the FWS has fee or less than fee interest. They are also known as a refuge Boundary, ownership Boundary, or a parcel Layer. The Fish and Wildlife Service is divided into regions. Region 1 includes CA, OR, WA, NV, ID, HI, and the Pacific outlying areas. The region has 112 refuges with 5,860,595 acres. This accounts for about 5.7 % of the acreage within the system. Maps have been completely digitized. Region 2 includes AZ, NM, TX, and OK. The region has 44 Refuges with 2,846,206 acres. This accounts for about 2.8 % of the acreage within the system. 44/44 boundary maps 37/44 land status maps have been digitized. Region 3 includes MI, OH, IL, IN, WI, MN, IA, and MO. The region has 52 refuges with 1,312,410 acres. This accounts for about 1.3 % of the acreage within the system. 52/52 boundary maps have been digitized. Region 4 includes GA, KY, TN, NC, SC, FL, AL, AR, MS, and LA. The region has 44 refuges with 3,759,912 acres. This accounts for about 3.7 % of the acreage within the system. 126/128 boundary maps and 82/128 land status maps have been digitized. Region 5 includes ME, VT, NH, RI, CT, MA, DE, NJ, NY, PA, MD, and VA, WV The region has 71 refuges with 495,243 acres. This accounts for about .48 % of the acreage within the system. Maps have been completely digitized. Region 6 includes KS, NE, CO, ND, SD, MT, WY, and UT. The region has 121 refuges with 4,821,524 acres. This accounts for about 4.7 % of the acreage within the system. 106/121 boundary maps and 62/121 land status maps have been digitized. Region 7 includes AK. The region has 16 refuges with 83,035,352 acres. This accounts for about 81.3% of the acreage within the system. Maps have been completely digitized. Doug informed us that the Service has been in the process of updating the map chapter in the Fish and Wildlife Service manual. He showed us a legend of old linetypes and pen sizes that were holdovers from a time period when maps were being produced manually. He presented various examples of digital maps now being produced by FWS, Division of Realty. He compared them with older style maps produced by the Service. The new maps use color to a much greater degree. DOQs are used whenever possible as the basemap for all FWS maps. When DOQs are not available the Service relies on DRGs and DLGs. Attempts have been made to get all regions to conform to graphic standards and publication formats, but they are not consistent throughout the system. The FWS Cartographic Resources website is http://realty.fws.gov/carto-resources.html. (Submitted and approved by David Deckelbaum) Michael Cooley Cooperative Topographic Mapping, U.S. Geological Survey The National Map Within the Geography discipline program The National Map is the most critical USGS program. We are presently harvesting data that is available rather than producing it in house. This is a very significant shift for the Survey. This year, we will be putting a significant number of people from our production centers out into the field closer to the sources of data. We are talking to cities, counties and other government agencies to locate and obtain data. Graphic Products produced from The National Map are being produced from a non-tiled data set. This is fairly critical. Before, with the quadrangles, all of the information was tiled. In the future, that will not be the case. Graphics will be produced where and when they are needed with only the information that is requested. Printing and distribution will be done by the private sector, as is being encouraged by the current administration, which is trying to move things that can be done by the public out to the public. We are committed to working with our partners, and consider the library community to be one of our partners. We want to have a dialog with libraries. We also need to work through the rest of The National Map process, for example the model for the delivery of graphics will be different then what we have today. Distribution Concept of the National Map There will be a seamless reference layer at 1:24,000 from which a small resolution scale could be easily derived. Once a user identifies what is needed, they will go through The National Map order process to get a collarless or collared Digital Raster Graphic. For those areas that are very popular, especially for our business partners who might want to stock a graphic and print it on demand, we’ll produce a graphic color plate which will then be taken to a printer. All of this will be done through a staged FTP site. The National Atlas Another aspect of The National Map is our small-scale component, the National Atlas (http://www.nationalatlas.gov). At some point in time, the National Atlas and The National Map will be brought c loser together so that it is more seamless. Right now the Atlas is addressing a different user community than the National Map. As the two grow, it is expected that they will grow together. One of the trends of the National Atlas is a page-sized product. Based on user feedback, we have found that most people don’t want to build a map; they want the map built for them. So we are doing more of that. Some examples are the state Congressional district and the Federal lands maps. Key graphics of data from the National Atlas will be published in print form. Organizational Changes at USGS This year the distribution component, especially for hard copy products, is going to be moved over to the Geographic Information Office from the Geography Discipline. That will happen October 1, 2004. This will include all publications coming out of the USGS, including the Water Resource and Geologic discipline publications and those from our State Offices. At the same time, the ESICs and libraries will also report to the GIO. The name Earth Science Information Center (ESIC) will be changed to USGS National Science Network. They will be getting out of retail. A couple of them will become interpretive associations. The one in Denver is now an interpretive association, and we are looking into converting the ESICs in Reston, Menlo Park and possibly Alaska into interpretive associations as well. Map printing has been transferred to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As of last January, topographic map printing is being done by the FAA. This was done because the demand for USGS graphic has been decreasing and it was difficult to justify keeping a big expensive press operating, whereas the FAA still has a need to print and were looking to expand their operation. FAA is now printing topographic, BLM and thematic maps. Topographic map oversight, however, remains in the Geography Discipline. A Request for Information (RFI) will be going out to the private sector this summer. USGS is looking for input on strategies and new technologies that we can use to help get our products out faster, better and cheaper. We will be considering things such as maps on demand, a different distribution model and most likely will be going to some sort of print on demand, which will eliminate the need to store some of the maps that are just sitting on the shelf. There were around 4000 maps that had zero sales last year, so it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to continue to stock and warehouse topographic products that don’t have a whole lot of sales. USGS, like others in the depository community, is going to continue to move to electronic publication. More books, maps and reports will be going online. Most of them will also be available in hard copy. Two new actions that have been taken this year are the USGS Store (http://store.usgs.gov/), which has products that are for sale. It is an online catalog that has been modernized from an older system. The Publications Warehouse (http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/pubs/) contains a lot of bibliographies about USGS thematic maps and reports. It also contains links to publications that are available online. Prior to this, USGS did not have a good way for the general public to determine what publications were available, especially in the Open File Reports, which contain recent scientific information made available before it is published as a formal report. This includes information from all disciplines, such as geology and water resources. Some of the new products that have or will come out include posters of Glacier Bay, Under San Francisco Bay, and the Color-Coded Contour Map of Mars. The Lewis & Clark: Legacy of Science map has been very popular. A new map in the Geographic Face of the Nation series is also available. USGS is also distributing products for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, formerly National Imagery & Mapping Agency). They are producing a set of posters with maps of battlefields that they have used in displays. They have a series of historical maps available including maps of Antietam Battlefield, Armistice Day (WWI), D-Day, Normandy Air Campaign, Philippines, and Iwo Jima. Michael Cooley was not sure if these posters would be coming through the Depository Library Program. Questions and Comments from CUAC: CUAC: Given the plan to contract for printing, will these materials continue to be available through the Depository Library Program? Answer: USGS is presently just gathering information about the printing capabilities in the private sector. What will change is if USGS puts out a Request for Proposal (RFP), to replace the present system. The Depository Library Program and working with libraries is critical to USGS. If USGS puts a new system into place, we will make sure that all of the products that are still printed are available in the Depository Library Program. CUAC: Frequently, when CRADAs have occurred, things drop out. We don’t hear about CRADAs until after they have been signed. Answer: CRADAs (Cooperative Research & Development Agreements) are different and usually deal with specific products that we are trying to work on with the private sector. Some CRADA products deal with proprietary information that we cannot really release to the public. If we go out on an RFP for distribution, the outside organization will be taking over or working with USGS to do the printing, distribution, storage, or some aspect of it. They will be taking over or working with USGS. We can certainly control it and make sure that libraries continue to receive information. CUAC: There is a difference between inks used for maps on demand vs. something coming off of a lithographic press. Is USGS looking into producing materials for the Depository Library Program through a print on demand process? Answer: As it is right now, when we move more towards The National Map, although that is a little ways off, what we’ll probably end up doing is sending some sort of file to be distributed through the Depository Library Program. There won’t be any hard copy products coming with that digital file. One of the reasons is that the data is continually outdated. The concept of The National Map is that it will be constantly maintained through our partners, so the data that you get one day may be a bit different from the data that is available a month later. Some parts of the country are updated faster than other parts. CUAC: Regarding the continual updating process of The National Map, what do you have in place regarding archiving of data so that people can view a snapshot of a particular time? Researchers are very interested in looking at older topographic maps to see how land use and land cover have changed over the years. We all have a concern that once The National Map becomes fully functional, 50 years from now there will be a time period of about 20 years that nobody will know what the changes were. Answer: Archiving is critical for government functions, and it is something that we need to address with The National Map. Right now, I know that there is different methodology and thinking with regard to archiving. For example, with the National Hydrologic Dataset, every time a new piece of data is added, the old data is saved, so that we can go back forever to view the previous data. There are different archiving models being proposed for transportation and other themes. USGS does understand that archiving is important, and we are trying to address it. The data format also has to be updated as well. Data has to be migrated from older storage media to more recent media. CUAC: The aerial photographs for the 130 cities in The National Map are available for downloading. Are there any plans to get this data into the Depository Library Program? Answer: What USGS is trying to do is populate The National Map with data. The images that will be put there will be made available to the public. Robin Haun-Mohammed (GPO) described the problems encountered when the Digital Orthophotoquads (DOQs) were in the Depository Library Program (DLP) many years ago. There were errors in the files that had to be corrected, and USGS could not continue to distribute them because of these problems. While GPO would like to see the USGS aerial photography included in the DLP, she would be surprised if that occurs. T.C. Evans: In terms of the DLP, focus, we are going to want to have these materials available in the FDLP Electronic Collection and the collection of last resort to be sure that they remain available. So perhaps what we need to do is work out a mechanism by which we can introduce them to the collection and bring them under bibliographic control so that they can be found and people know they are available. CUAC: In many cases, libraries are becoming the site of last resort for archiving data. So if data is not distributed, and data is just made available for downloading, after a while as data is continually updated, we may lose older data. That is our concern. The 1970 Census data is available at Princeton. The Census Bureau is now asking Princeton for that data because they no longer have it. If data is distributed through the Depository Library Program, later on you will have 100 or so libraries with the data. Universities also have storage space and are interested in retaining older data for researchers use. This is a role that libraries in Universities can play. When you have data that you will no longer serve, or when you have new data, it is critical that at least one library in a state gets that data so it is available somewhere outside of Washington, D.C. Answer: This is obviously a major issue of concern to libraries. If there is a way that CUAC can bring this up as a separate topic with USGS, we could address some of your concerns specifically and what we might be able to do. Keven Roth would be a better person to address these issues and our direction regarding these issues. CUAC: You spoke about the publications warehouse where Open-File Reports can be downloaded. What format is the data of these Open-Files? Answer: We are scanning at 400dpi as TIFF uncompressed, then compressed using LizardTech DjVu compression software. What USGS is doing with the Open-Files is getting a record of them up on the Internet so that they can be found. A lot of them have not yet been scanned and put into a digital format. USGS is in the process of scanning them. The hope is that this will be done within the next year. The other thing that we are doing is cleaning out all of the older Open-Files. Open-Files are supposed to be a 5-year temporary storage for products before they are officially published in one of our series. So we are going ahead and getting them scanned, cleaning out the older ones, and getting them online. That should be done this year. When that is done, as to what format they will be in, I am not sure. The scanning is being done from paper and mylar, rather than fiche. USGS focus at present is the report-style Open-Files rather than the maps. CUAC: As part of The National Map Distribution Concept, when someone orders a map you output a 500 dpi file. What is the reason for deciding on that resolution? Answer: USGS has run a series of tests where we’ve taken a lithographic map and scanned them at various resolutions. What we have found is that for the storage and printing technology available, for 99% of the graphic products available, 500 dpi works fairly well. Some maps with closely spaced contours or high density areas might require a higher resolution, so they will be produced at a higher resolution. It is based upon a random sample of scanning graphics at various resolutions. When we ran the tests, this resolution was best for the printers and technology that we had available. This gives the best quality at the smallest file size possible. (Submitted by Linda Zellmer) Carol Brandt (carol.brandt@bts.gov) Geospatial Information Program Manager Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) BTS worked extensively on Geospatial One Stop (GOS) this past year. The Department of the Interior is the lead federal agency for GOS, an E-government initiative found at http://www.geo-one-stop.gov/index.html. USDOT is the lead agency for the transportation theme for the NSDI (National Spatial Data Infrastructure) and GOS, with BTS playing a large role in the USDOT work on GOS. Since last spring, BTS completed four data content standards for GOS: roads, railroads, transit and air. These four modal standards are part of a draft comprehensive standards document that was submitted to ANSI on September 30, 2003; draft standards for all seven themes can be found at: www.geo-one-stop.gov/Standards/index.html. All GOS standards will need some changes and improvements before being finalized. From the beginning DOI encouraged non-Federal participation in the standards process, and USDOT/BTS was quite successful in engaging the transportation geospatial community in the effort. USDOT is developing a pilot proof-of-concept portal to implement the road standard developed through the GOS process, but because it was developed behind a firewall, so far this portal has been demonstrated to interested parties via screen shots and screen cameras only. The comprehensive data portal for GOS is at http://www.geodata.gov/ and includes a wide range of features and data. The pilot proof-of-concept portal regarding implementing road standards will eventually translate data from local schemas to the nationally recognized transportation content standard. The broader GOS goal is to enable the user to seamlessly view and obtain geographic data that are stored and maintained by independent organizations, without having to know the details of how the data are stored and maintained by the independent data organizations. Eventually the geodata.gov site will allow users to pull data, as well as harvesting accompanying metadata, and put it onto individual desktops. Geospatial products efforts from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) include: Freight Analysis Framework (FAF, found at http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/faf/index.htm), a source of static maps which integrates various data sources to estimate commodity flows and freight transportation activity among states regions, and major international estimates. FAF estimates and forecasts are currently available for 1998, 2010, and 2020, and the web site includes freight transportation profiles for each state. Scenic Byways Initiative, a collaborative project found at http://www.byways.org/, serves to recognize, preserve, and enhance selected roads (not interstates) throughout the United States. Certain roads are recognized as All-American Roads or National Scenic Byways based on one or more archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic qualities. On the website, photos of the route are available, and maps showing Scenic Byway travel routes can be created. In addition, the site has a request form for a free map of the 96 “America’s Byways” routes. National Traffic and Road Closure Information site at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/trafficinfo/index.htm lists country-wide information on road construction, weather, real-time traffic conditions, and links to state departments of transportation. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has mounted the National Hazardous Materials Route Registry at http://hazmat.fmcsa.dot.gov/ which provides the most current listing of the national network of Prescribed, Restricted, and HRCQ Radioactive truck routes. In order to view routes contained in the registry, the user must apply for access. Once access is granted, users may login using their email address and an assigned password. Please note that all Internet activity will be logged. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) maintains two rail networks (based on cartographic scale and attributes), as well as a database of Amtrak stations and attributes both available for download from the BTS mapping center, NTAD 2003 Download Center (http://transtats.bts.gov/mappingcenter.asp). The FRA’s Office of Safety Analysis reporting site at http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/ includes some interactive mapping capability. Visitors to this site have access to railroad safety information including accidents and incidents, inspections and highway-rail crossing data. From this site users can run dynamic queries, download a variety of safety database files, publications and forms, and view current statistical information on railroad safety. Government workers are currently in the field collected GPS information on rail beds for the FRA. This information is being integrated into the existing rail network to improve the positional accuracy. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), in partnership with BTS, is engaged in an analysis of transit systems and population figures to encourage greater public transit ridership. The National Transit GIS will include geographic information based on state, county, city and town, urbanized areas, and other political boundaries. Streets, municipal buildings, hospitals, schools, etc., will be represented as well as rivers, streams, lakes, and parks. The spatially referenced data base will provide such transit planning and operations data as population served, ridership, passenger miles and route/rail miles for all modes of public transit. Information about this planned initiative is found at http://www.fta.dot.gov/library/technology/GIS/TGIS/TGIS.HTM. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), at <http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/> has made available on-line mapping of accidents to county level, using data from the Fatal Accident and Reporting System (FARS). At this time, there continue to be problems with accessing the data. Within the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), the Office of Pipeline Safety has developed the Pipeline Integrity Management Mapping Application (PIMMA) for use by pipeline operators and Federal, state, and local government officials. The application contains sensitive pipeline critical infrastructure information, and would-be users need to contact the Office of Pipeline Safety for permission to access the database. After some investigation, most users will be notified they can use the system. Further information is on the website, at http://www.npms.rspa.dot.gov/data/who_access.htm Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website at http://www.faa.gov/ includes an airport status interactive map link to check airport delays across the country. Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) are also on the FAA web site. The website of the Geographic Information Services section of BTS, http://www.bts.gov/programs/geographic_information_services/, links to the transportation spatial data activities of the section. Along with its Geospatial One Stop work and its participation in the FGDC, BTS serves geospatial data through the National Transportation Atlas Databases (NTAD). BTS is also working with the DOT Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting on a Gulf Coast study to evaluate the effects to transportation infrastructure if sea level rise is caused by climate change. USDOT/BTS and the Census Bureau are collaborating on a census transportation planning package. Data resulting from this collaboration will include tabulations by place of residence, place of work, and the flows between the resident and work. The web application for this project is in development and should be online by the end of fiscal year 2003/2004. The BTS website also links to a mapping center at http://transtats.bts.gov/mappingcenter.asp In another data development partner ship, BTS and FHWA are collaborating on geocoding the National Bridge Inventory (NBI). The NBI is a tabular database of bridge attributes, including physical characteristics and condition. BTS is adding geocoding and additional tabular data to the database; 79% of the bridges have been geocoded so far. The two agencies are uncertain whether the final geocoded data will be released to the general public. The tabular data on bridges (without gecoding) is currently available to the public from FHWA. (Submitted by Mary McInroy) Betsy Kanalley US National Forest Service Betsy Kanalley (Banas), Staff Cartographer from the US National Forest Service (NFS) began her presentation with an update of recent NFS activities.  These include work on the National Map (the Forest Service is taking the lead regarding the vegetation coverage layer), remote-sensing issues with other governments (particularly in the area of forest fires), and preparations for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Forest Service. Betsy explained that the Forest Service map production facilities are dispersed throughout their 9 Regions in the US.  NFS has been attempting to set standards regarding map format, colors, layout, and content.  New specifications for symbology have been issued. There has been an effort to privatize some of the current mapping jobs at NFS.  The Regions have come under closer fiscal management recently because NFS failed a Government Accounting Office (GAO) audit.  GAO encouraged the Service to do more internal collaboration, and increase the amount of information being distributed via the web. Regarding the Healthy Forest Initiative, the Forest Service is concentrating its efforts on 4 threats: Fire and fuel, invasive species, loss of open space, and unmanaged recreation (such as off-highway vehicle use). Betsy explained that NFS is not receiving extra money for fighting fires, so those funds are being taken from other areas. The Geospatial Service and Technology Center (GSTC) in Salt Lake City has been concentrating its efforts on services not products.  It is providing data to the Regions for their maps; this data is taken from all areas of the Service and is being converted to a common set of Geographic Information System (GIS) standards.  The data is being used to make better maps and improve planning decisions.  Also, the Regions have been able to use the data to provide information to and meet the needs of the general public.  The Remote Sensing Application Center & Geospatial Service and Technology Center has mounted some of its data on the web at: http://fsgeodata.fs.fed.us/ NFS has launched http://recreation.gov.  In connection with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), this portal allows users to discover information about recreational opportunities on NFS and BLM lands. (Submitted by Chris Thiry)