Geographic Information Systems—

A New Newtown Road Map

Is Fashioned From Digital Data

By Andrew Gorosko

The town has created a new road map, accurately depicting the many new roads that have been built during the past decade as the town has grown.

Scott Sharlow, the town’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) coordinator, compiled the road map that is based on many sources of information.

GIS is an electronic mapping system designed to provide a wealth of planning information to its users through a digitized cross-indexing system. GIS mapping collects and unifies both broad geographical information, such as the course of rivers and layout of road networks, as well as fine details, such as the location of individual utility poles and stormwater catch basins.

The system incorporates many electronic “layers” of information that may be added, subtracted, or recombined to produce customized electronic maps.

Various town agencies, which heavily use local roads, have been eager to obtain customized paper copies of the road map, which have been drawn to meet their particular travel needs. The photogrammetric mapping is based on aerial photographs that were taken on April 7, 2002.

Prime users of the new road map will be police, firefighters, ambulance crew members, the emergency dispatch center, the public works department, and the public school system.

Mr Sharlow has fashioned a road map that provides sufficient detail for local navigation but omits extraneous details that might be distracting to the traveler.

The new mapping provides a level of road detail that formerly had been difficult to find in local road maps. The new road map is “significantly more accurate than anything that has existed before,” Mr Sharlow said. New digital data will be used to continually update the computerized mapping.

Among the challenges in producing the road map were providing clear, accurate depictions of the road layouts in the several communities situated alongside Lake Zoar. Until now, it has been difficult to find a map with good content on the narrow, winding roads in those areas.

At their request, Mr Sharlow has produced a 6-foot by 6-foot paper map for Botsford firefighters, depicting the town’s entire road network. The town’s outline lends itself better to a square map than to a more conventional oblong map. The public works department has a similar large map of the whole town.

Also, Mr Sharlow is developing a 17-inch by 22-inch foldable paper road map that police officers will keep in their patrol cars for quick reference. The map will include a road index on the reverse side to hold down the map’s overall size.

The standard paper map to be sold to the public by the town will have dimensions of 34 inches by 44 inches. The map includes a detailed road index that is keyed to map grid coordinates. The price of a paper copy is $20.

The town’s GIS database holds a wealth of detail that may be used to create custom maps. Requests for such custom mapping have been submitted by private individuals, a conservation organization, a surveyor, an appraiser, and a developer, plus town agencies including the Board of Selectmen, Open Space Committee, Office of Community Development, and the Health Department.

The town’s GIS website on the Internet has 19 downloadable maps. The online address is: www.newtown-ct.gov/Public_Documents/NewtownCT_GIS/maps/downloadable_maps.