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I have always found maps to be interesting. Whether it was a nautical chart or fold out road map in the back seat of a car, I spent quite a bit of time looking at maps as a child. Even when I go somewhere today, I will often bring back a map as a souvenir.
Recently, I tuned into a webinar hosted by the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) all about permitting. One topic that caught my attention was the process of obtaining a railroad crossing permit, which, in the United States, requires including a standardized railroad crossing ID.
Curiosity piqued, and I decided to do a bit of sleuthing to see if this data was readily available. A quick Google search with the terms "Federal Railroad Crossing Esri" led me straight to the Federal Railroad Administration Safety Crossing Inventory, Form 71. I found that this database contained up-to-date information that could really simplify the permitting process.
As most people know, technology, particularly hardware, continues to mature and advance. I think back to the first desktop computer my family had and the jaw-dropping 128k of RAM it had and compare that to the laptop I am writing on that has 16 gigabytes of RAM. That's 16,777,216k!!! The change did not happen overnight. It happened over about 35 years in my example. While not exclusive to Android, we are seeing this evolution continue today with the new releases of the Android operating system.