Shitty cartographic practices

[NE2]

These are things cartographers do that make maps objectively worse:
*Placing traffic light symbols where the stop line is instead of at the intersection. This removes clear machine-readable information about which intersections are traffic light controlled, and may be confusing and ambiguous in the case of multiple intersections near each other.
*Marking grid-named county roads as if they were signed county routes. There's no CR 600 W here; it's a local county-maintained road named "600 West".

[jakeroot]

On OSM: arguing over trunks vs motorway designations.

Anywhere else: red to green color ramps.

[CoreySamson]

Google really needs to make county lines more visible (even if it means turning on a little icon in an obscure sub-menu to activate it).

[Scott5114]

Agreed on both. Google is pretty bad about the second one too.

Some others:
* Using generic "EW 1250" or "NS 1820" names from TIGER or whatever instead of actually doing the legwork to see how those are signed/named in the field. (Fortunately lessening since GSV became a thing and made it trivial to look up sign photos.)
* Likewise, displaying placeholder names imported from somewhere else. (The number of lakes I've seen labeled as "Oknoname 8675309 Reservoir" is ludicrous.)
* Bad placement of route shields that leaves a segment of road ambiguous as to which highway it is.
* Placing only one shield along a concurrency, so it's not clear whether there's a gap in the route or a true concurrency.

On OSM: arguing over trunks vs motorway designations.

I love OSM but I hate that it was built on a foundation of British mapping conventions. North American mapping conventions are a lot more general-purpose since they focus on the physical characteristics of a road, like presence of a median or number of lanes, rather than its functional class. (Of course, the functional class can usually be derived from the physical characteristics.)

[vdeane]

Google really needs to make county lines more visible (even if it means turning on a little icon in an obscure sub-menu to activate it).

I've been known to use the COVID-19 layer for county lines.

[formulanone]

Putting the shield right in the middle of a crossroads where two similar/same-color route lines meet.

Political boundaries which are different but share the same color; somehow, the four color rule was too hard to grasp.

Icons that are way too large compared to other symbols for points of interest.

[KCRoadFan]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .

[vdeane]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .

I actually made a similar mistake on my website once.  Turns out that "E Bosket Road" on NY 17 is actually Earl Bosket Road... not sure how that would have been caught if a local hadn't happened to see it after I set up my site's Facebook page.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

And abbreviating "Norte", "Oriente" and "Poniente" to "Nte.", "Ote." and "Pte." everywhere, not just in Mexico. I think I've said one example in Spain many times, in which the historical main throughfare is named Calle Oriente in the Eastern side and Calle Poniente in the Western, and guess how it shows up in Google Maps. Of course, the street signs in place show the full name.

[hotdogPi]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .

Map: St. St. (Saint Street)
GPS: Robert East Lee

[cpzilliacus]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .

Agree.  An egregious example in Washington, D.C. are the three "Capitol"
streets that go north, east and south from the U.S. Capitol (there is no
West Capitol Street, that is the middle of the National Mall).  Frequently,
these are marked just as Capitol Street which is never correct.

These are the dividing lines between quadrants of the city but when
speaking about them the quadrant is not used but quadrants
are used for addresses on these streets.

North Capitol Street divides N.W. and N.E.

East Capitol Street divides N.E. and S.E.

South Capitol Street divides S.E. and S.W.

National Mall divides N.W. and S.W.

[LilianaUwU]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Ugh, same. The use of improper abbreviations in general make me unreasonably angry, such as using Chem. instead of Ch. for Chemin. What's the point of Chem.? Might as well use the whole word at that point.

[Scott5114]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Ugh, same. The use of improper abbreviations in general make me unreasonably angry, such as using Chem. instead of Ch. for Chemin. What's the point of Chem.? Might as well use the whole word at that point.

There are some signs for Northwest Expressway in OKC that sign it "N.W. EXPRWY." First off, the name of the thing is Northwest, so spell that out, and a six-letter abbreviation is hardly an abbreviation at all!

[SectorZ]

Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End"  is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue"  as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)

Ugh, same. The use of improper abbreviations in general make me unreasonably angry, such as using Chem. instead of Ch. for Chemin. What's the point of Chem.? Might as well use the whole word at that point.

Off-topic a bit but the whole why not use the whole word thing has been done to cartoonish levels in other media.

Back in the 90's, the Philadelphia Phillies had Mitch Williams and Mike Williams on the team, and many newspapers used to abbreviate both as Mit. Williams and Mik. Williams in box scores or stat logs (when those were things in a newspaper).

[ran4sh]

Putting the shield right in the middle of a crossroads where two similar/same-color route lines meet.

Political boundaries which are different but share the same color; somehow, the four color rule was too hard to grasp.

Icons that are way too large compared to other symbols for points of interest.

The four color rule doesn't apply to many real-world map situations, and also, is not usually followed when bodies of water are indicated on the map (usually one color is used for all bodies of water and it's not one of the four colors of the four color map).

[hotdogPi]

Political boundaries which are different but share the same color; somehow, the four color rule was too hard to grasp.

The four color rule doesn't apply to many real-world map situations, and also, is not usually followed when bodies of water are indicated on the map (usually one color is used for all bodies of water and it's not one of the four colors of the four color map).

It's perfectly fine to use more than four colors (although four is always possible). The issue is with making adjacent regions the same color.

[Road Hog]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

[Scott5114]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.

[I-55]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.

Taking that class this semester, so new to projections but learning okay. Hate how ArcGIS has such sensitive zooming, can either zoom to see the whole state or the chocolate around your lips, nothing in between. And error propagation can go jump off a cliff.

[jakeroot]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.

Taking that class this semester, so new to projections but learning okay. Hate how ArcGIS has such sensitive zooming, can either zoom to see the whole state or the chocolate around your lips, nothing in between. And error propagation can go jump off a cliff.

Are you using Pro or ArcMap?

[ozarkman417]

Using the same shield type for every highway in a given area.

The offenders of this are typically small scale organization or businesses, from what I've seen.

[Scott5114]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.

Taking that class this semester, so new to projections but learning okay. Hate how ArcGIS has such sensitive zooming, can either zoom to see the whole state or the chocolate around your lips, nothing in between. And error propagation can go jump off a cliff.

Give the open-source QGIS a try in your free time. Haven't had those issues with it, but some useful ArcGIS features may be missing. Still worth playing with.

[ran4sh]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.

"No good"? Idk about that, I dislike projections in which north/south and east/west intersect at angles other than 90 degrees.

At least to learn the accurate sizes of places one can look up the area in an encyclopedia or similar. Maps are meant to be for locating places.

[Scott5114]

We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?

Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.

"No good"? Idk about that, I dislike projections in which north/south and east/west intersect at angles other than 90 degrees.

At least to learn the accurate sizes of places one can look up the area in an encyclopedia or similar. Maps are meant to be for locating places.

It's not just about size, it's about distance. Most maps are to scale so you can measure the distances between two places (x inches = y miles). Because Mercator, and other cylindrical projections that feature right-angle lines of latitude and longitude, do not have a consistent scale on large areas due to distortion, you cannot use them to accurately measure large distances. For most applications, Mercator simply isn't the right tool for the job–it's useful for applications like marine navigation where being able to plot a course with a straightedge is helpful, but this benefit is of no importance in most modern use cases.

Google actually pulls a kind of neat trick and has different zoom layers rendered in different projections, so that you are given maps based on more rectilinear projections at high zoom levels where distortion is relatively constant, and then it shifts to more spherical projections as you zoom out and view a large enough area that the distortion would become unacceptable.

[NWI_Irish96]

These are things cartographers do that make maps objectively worse:
*Placing traffic light symbols where the stop line is instead of at the intersection. This removes clear machine-readable information about which intersections are traffic light controlled, and may be confusing and ambiguous in the case of multiple intersections near each other.
*Marking grid-named county roads as if they were signed county routes. There's no CR 600 W here; it's a local county-maintained road named "600 West".

Since you used Indiana as an example, I will say this: Since there is no such thing as county highways in Indiana, and since the quality of county roads varies greatly within counties, I don't think it's a bad idea to differentiate in some way.

I will note, however, that your specific example, CR 600 W in Kosciusko County, is NOT a high quality road that deserves such a differentiation.