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1. At the top of the website, in the 'Search" box, type "roads" and click the HGAC Major Roads result directly beneath the search box.
   
   
   
   
2. Click Download > Full Dataset Shapefile.
   
   
   
   
3. At the bottom of your browser window, you should see the HGAC_Major_Roads-shp.zip compressed folder downloaddownloaded.
   
   

Houston METRO Downloads

The Houston METRO website provides GIS data for the public transit system in Houston provided by METRO. While the same data is also available on the H-GAC Regional Data Hub, it is often For this tutorial, you will need the bus stops and bus routes data, which is included in the downloadable zip-file containing all of the GIS data available on the site. To obtain this data:

1. Using a web browser, search for "houston metro gis" and select the result as shown below or go directly to: https://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/DigitalAssets.aspx.
   
   
   
   
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the webpage and select Get Started.
   
   
   
   
3. From the left "Featured collections" dropdown select Transit Data Files.
   
   
   
   
4. Select Shape files.
5. Click on  Bus Routes - shape file and click download. 
6. Repeat for Bus Stops - shape file.

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1.  (do not check the box) and click the blue Download button.
2. Click outside of the download pop-up window to close it.
3. Click Bus Stops - shape file (do not check the box) and click the blue Download button.
4. At the bottom of your browser window, you should see both the RS2688_Bus Stops - shape file.zip and RS2689_Bus Routes - shape file.zip compressed folders downloaded.
   
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COHGIS

Though it is not used in this course, the Harris County Appraisal District (HCAD) Public Data and the  COHGIS (City of Houston GIS) Open Data Portal are other great online sources.

HCAD provides similar data such as highways, utilities, and water districts and is available at: http://pdata.hcad.org/GIS/index.html. 

The COHGIS (City of Houston GIS) Open Data Portal website provides over 100 Data Hub provides over 200 data sets including administrative boundaries, amenity locations, transportation routes, crime, and flooding and is available at: https://cohgis-mycity.opendata.arcgis.com/. (Whenever you see a URL that ends in opendata.arcgis.com, you will know that you are visiting a standard ArcGIS Open Data portal.)Hub, which are commonly used by government entities for sharing GIS data.)

The Harris County Appraisal District (HCAD) Public Data website is another great source of Houston data.

HCAD provides similar data such as highways, utilities, and water districts and is available at: https://hcad.org/hcad-online-services/pdata/. 

OPTION 2: Accessing tutorial data from Fondren Library using the gistrain profile

If you are completing this tutorial from a computer in Fondren Library and are logged in using the gistrain profile, follow the instructions below:

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