I downloaded this and was going to install it on my Oregon 550T, but after I got it installed it doesn't appear to be a routable file; is it supposed to be. I don't see the use of having all those roads loaded if you can't route them.
They are not routable; few free maps are as it takes considerable more work and unitl a few months age the software version to do so was very expensive. The software to make routable maps may not have been available when that mapset was made 2-1/2 years ago.
For any serious routing, you will need to purchase a Garmin product. There are routable OSM maps, and a few others out there but they have major bugs and limitations. For starters, the free road data just isn't nearly as accurate as Navteq. More of an issue, the free routable maps don't support address search and don't have rich POI collections like Garmin's maps. You get what you pay for.
Garmin's 24k topo maps have the same routable roads as City Navigator. Mapwel now supports routable roads, so there's now an inexpensive and user friendly program to create your own. But it will still have the same limitations described above. http://mapwel.eu/
The nice thing about DIY routable trail maps is they can tell you how far you are from your destination. Too bad there are so few available.
I am trying to figure out how to do routable trails since personally that is quite useful on topo maps and should take less time than trying to make all the roads correctly routable.
Never tried a trails only map, but it doesn't seem like there should be a problem with just one routable type. With my stuff the problem is generally with Tiger inconsistencies. What sorts of problems have you encountered? When I do it I just have GPSMapEdit generate a routing graph and then have it "Verify Map". This lets you eliminate loop roads and too close points.