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Subject:        Re: MAPS-L: Avoid ‘geographical embarassment’
Date:   Wed, 17 May 2006
From:   Dennis McClendon <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>



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Online maps, particularly in urban areas, are based on Navteq or
TeleAtlas data, which is field-checked regularly and obsessively enough
to be used for vehicle navigation devices. Paper maps seldom receive any
field-checking at all, so using a four-year-old satellite image is the
least of their problems.

My little map company does maps for phone books (for three publishers)
in small cities out west. We are the only vendor these companies use
that does ANY fieldchecking at all. Commercial companies publishing
gas-station maps may do a little fieldchecking or– most likely– none at
all. They rely almost entirely on information from local governments,
which typically keep track of where rights of way have been dedicated,
not where streets actually exist. It's not unusual for me to discover
that 5-8 percent of the local government map for an area is complete
fiction, showing non-existent "paper" streets, not showing cut-throughs
that people have carved across public land, showing different names than
on the street sign, or failing to note where through streets have been
barricaded to frustrate through traffic.


Dennis McClendon, Chicago CartoGraphics
http://www.chicagocarto.com/



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http://www.stltoday.com/blogs/business-talking-tech/2006/05/avoid-geographical-embarassment/

> Article from the St. Louis Dispatch interviewing, of all things, a map
> librarian about maps!! Way to go Jim!



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