NYCO's Blog highlighted a map showing which school districts face the ugly combination of above average tax rates and lower spending per student. The map comes from the Midstate School Finance Consortium, which is pushing the state for fairer and...
Earlier this morning I noted the work of the Ithaca Tompkins County Transportation Council (ITCTC) on a draft map for bicyclists indicating the suitability of various roads in the county for bicycling. Here's a closer view of the portion of...
The Town Board will soon be evaluating the prospects for a water district along Ellis Hollow Road (where wells have been having problems) and for a water and sewer district near Pinckney Road, where it would serve businesses between there...
I mentioned earlier that I was working on permaculture design for my house and its surrounding area. A key part of that is planning, and I've hired Joshua Dolan to help with that and more. To get started, he and...
There's a lot of discussion of soil types at Town Hall. Soil types affect everything from agriculture to septic tank placement to erosion and runoff. The Town of Dryden Comprehensive Plan includes Map 4-1, Natural Constraints to Development (1.9MB PDF),...
If anyone's curious how I made the presidential election and voter registration maps of Tompkins County, and doesn't mind a walk through some technical details, my employer's published Hacking Election Maps with XML and MapServer, which explains how I created...
After last night's 2004 presidential voting maps, I thought I'd play with the voter registration data and see what kind of perspective that gives on the politics of the county. As I did with the presidential data, I stripped it...
Two books I edited on mapping topics - Mapping Hacks and Web Mapping Illustrated - are coming out next month, so I've been wanting to play with maps. By combining district-by-district election data for the 2004 presidential race, the 2002...
Cornell's proposed windmills on Mount Pleasant, near the WHCU radio tower, encountered a lot of opposition last week. I missed the informational meeting at the Varna Community Center, so I went to the Environmental Management Council meeting last Wednesday instead....
I've been meaning to link to Google Maps for a while, though I've been sticking to MapQuest out of habit. Google's posted satellite photos now in addition to their regular maps, as you can see at this link to the...
The 1996 fire coverage map for Dryden (the last one compiled, apparently still in use by 911) turned up a few months ago, and I've finally gotten around to scanning it. If you want to see a larger (32x32 inches...
I mentioned in an earlier story that the Town Board decided to focus discussion of a new Town Hall on the existing site. Since then, I've gotten some of the photos discussed at the meeting, of the existing site and...
The other day I noticed concrete markers along the south side of Route 13. I'd driven by them for years without seeing them, but suddenly they seemed to be everywhere. Monuments at Ringwood Road and Route 13 The survey map...
The Ithaca Journal's editorial today examines the annual assessment process. This process has come under fire lately, largely because taxes and assessments have risen at the same time. I think the Journal is right that annual assessment and a central...
We'll see what the Town Planning Board has to say about Etna's future tonight, but here's a rich description of its past from George Goodrich. Etna was a very busy place, and this entry is considerably longer than the one...
Since the Town Planning Board will be looking at Varna's future tonight, it seemed like an appropriate day to post George Goodrich's history of its past. (I'm still typing in Etna's chapter.) In a first, I've scanned in the pictures...
The Verizon Wireless booth at the Pyramid Mall used to have a poster-sized map of their coverage areas. Of course, I signed up with them (or Frontier, anyway) when I lived in a place with coverage, and moved here, which...
Whenever I look at a map of Tompkins County, I look for the distinctively-shaped intersection of Routes 13 and 366. Even if a map doesn't have road labels, it stands out pretty clearly. It wasn't always that way, however -...
I made it to last night's informational meeting on the Town's Draft Comprehensive Plan, held at the Dryden Town Hall. (The hearing on annexation was at the Village Hall, at the same time, and there was a bit of confusion.)...
Before tonight's informational meeting on the Draft Comprehensive Plan, I asked George Frantz, the planner, why the GIS versions of the maps weren't available. He said he's not allowed to redistribute maps made by Tompkins County. I said a lot...
Despite my sniffling, sneezing, and coughing, I've been enjoying something new I got for work - Manifold GIS software. It's a map viewing and creation tool that lets me get right into the map data published by people like the...
The Town website now hosts the 2003 Draft Comprehensive Plan. This is a fascinating document with lots of pieces, but I'll be a while digesting before I comment on it in depth. The draft (without maps) is 2.4MB long, so...
While looking through the Cornell Plantations Path Guide, I noticed the Cayuga Trails Club's 1971 Cayuga Trail map in the back. Though it clearly wasn't the focus on the map, two small labels stood out: "Ellis Hollow Rd. NY 393"...
I've always been fond of maps, and can happily sit around reading them for hours. I just stumbled on the property tax maps for Dryden. My own house is at the far left of Map 52. If you know your...
I live at 1259 Dryden Road, Ithaca, NY 14850. Does that address say Ithaca, when this blog is about Dryden? It sure does. The house is in the Town of Dryden, but is just barely in the Ithaca zip code,...