Streetscape Survey Mapping Support

The Department of Technology Services - Geographic Information Systems (DTS-GIS) provides the Montgomery County, Maryland Urban District (UD) staff of Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Wheaton with field survey mapping support and training. The UD staff requested DTS-GIS to assist them with developing a computer-friendly method to survey and inventory streetscapes within their districts to improve maintenance efficiency. Consequently, DTS-GIS and UD performed the following tasks:

Developed inventory requirements for each streetscape feature to be mapped

Purchased hand-held computers (Compaq IPAQ) and ArcPad GIS software for field mapping

Installed GIS software on the hand-held computer

Downloaded GIS datasets (street centerlines and high-resolution ortho-photos) of each urban district to the hand-held computer

Created attribute tables and inventory forms for each streetscape feature, using ArcView GIS and ArcPad's Extension, in accordance with the inventory requirements.

Train UD staff how to use the hand-held computers and GIS software to map and survey streetscape features

Began to survey streetscape features such as trees, streetlights, benches, etc.. in each district (The mapping efforts are on-going)

Download the survey data into UD and County GIS databases for storage, retrieval, and sharing