Calculating roadway distance within 1.5 miles of a single point

[ShelbyPW1]

I am trying to calculate 1.5 miles of roadway distance from a single point (Fire Department). Can this be done using a standard license? If so, how? If not, can this be done in QGIS and how? Thanks for your input.

Brett

[JoeBorgione]

That sort of question is typically answered with  ArcGIS Network Analyst | Overview .

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

Can you elaborate on your question?

For example:

• Is the goal is to find how far from a Fire Department point one could travel on roads 1.5 miles?  If so, one could use the Network Analyst Extension to run a Service Area.  Service area analysis—Help | ArcGIS Desktop 
• Is the goal to find all roads within 1.5 miles of the Fire Department "as the crow flies"?  If so, one could run a 1.5 mile Buffer of the Fire Department point, then use the output of that process to Clip the road layer.  Buffer—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop   Clip—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

Chris Donohue, GISP

[ShelbyPW1]

For insurance purposes, I am looking to create a layer showing all roadway features that 1.5 miles traveled from the Fire Station. Thanks.

Brett

[JoeBorgione]

Then you need to take a look at what both Chris and I suggested with respect to Network Analyst.....

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

If you have access to it, Network Analyst is the way to go.  Of course, that can easier be said than be done, as its a less-commonly used Extension, and if it is not available in your organization one will have to weigh buying it.  Also, using it can be interesting, as there is a learning curve to it and the data preparation can get pretty intense.  But if you have it and a network dataset already set up, it is an easy process to run a Service Area and then extract the roads that can be traversed for 1.5 miles from your fire station point.

Another option if you see that the cost and/or work in doing the data prep is too prohibitive is to consider hiring a consultant to do it for you.  (Both Joe Borgione  and I used to do this when we were in the Private Sector).

Chris Donohue, GISP