State Road Atlas

[SimMoonXP]

Have you ever wondering about Rand McNally do also produce some of State Road Atlas...

Available states are:

California and portions of Nevada: First printed 1982, 24th Edition, released April 2008
Pacific Northwest: First printed 1998, 7th Edition, released May 2006...new 8th Edition coming in May 2009.
Arizona including Las Vegas: 1st Editon, released July 2006
Florida: 1st Edition, released July 2006
Texas: 1st Edition, released March 2007
The Carolinas: 1st Edition, released June 2007
Ohio: 1st Edition, released June 2007
Hawaii: 1st Edition, released October 2007
Colorado: 1st Edition released November 2007

Sources:
http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1232922098/ref=sr_st?keywords=rand+mcnally+state+road+atlas&rs=1000&page=1&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Arand+mcnally+state+road+atlas&sort=daterank
http://store.randmcnally.com/category/road+atlases/state+%26+specialty+atlases.do

[Alex]

Having worked in the map industry for several years now, these state atlases are not that good anymore. Research is generally done in the office using the internet and maybe making a couple of phone calls. The era of field research and hiring researchers that know roads/maps vs. those that know GIS is over sadly.

[ComputerGuy]

More trustable for Washington would be WSDOT's GIS service.

[Chris]

I have a Rand McNally atlas of California. Not that good though. I love Michelin mapping.

Example of my area:

[Alex]

I worked for a national map company that hired people based upon their computer skills, not their geography skills.

Questions asked and things said, and other observations by co-workers:
"What is a state road?"
"I never check the shields, I assume the numbers don't change"
"That U.S. highway has been decommissioned for 20 years?"
"I thought that exit number was a county highway shield"
"Hell of Farms is supposed to be Hall of Fame?"
"Ohio's tallest point is in points not feet"
"What is the website for mapquest?"


flaroadgeek can add more...

[deathtopumpkins]

That is completely believable, aaroads. I can totally see people saying some of those things.

[FLRoads]

...yes I can vouch for all of these as being TRUE statements.  We both had to suffer through all of that.

Other quotes included:

"What does AAA stand for?"
"What are the round circles with numbers on the roads for?"
"Why do we make these maps?"

The people we worked with had NO clue about cartography, the seating arrangement sucked, having to endure MANY personal conversations and hearing fellow co-workers say "DO WHAT??" and "SAY WHAT?" in the most obnoxiously annoying voice possible, having 80 people in one building with a kitchen with a table suitable for 4, hearing constant laughter about things that were NOT funny, etc. etc.  I don't need to go on but you get the gist of the situation we were in....

[oldparoadgeek]

I have a Rand McNally atlas of California. Not that good though. I love Michelin mapping.

Example of my area:

I love Michelin maps also; its too bad that their US Atlas is produced by someone else.  Michelin did make 2 sheet maps  of  Southern New England and the Mid Atlantic States but then quit making maps of that size
I hope someday they finish mapping the rest of the
US at that scale.

[Duke87]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Google Maps (moreso than Mapquest, which it's a million times better than) has made paper maps and atlases pretty much completely obsolete.

[Alex]

GPS and Internet mapping has killed the paper map industry. There still be some need for paper maps, but not in the quantities that once existed.

Expect all of your regional favorites to die out and one larger company to remain. Its happening all over the country right now, with the little guys falling first followed by bankruptcies and decreasing sales to larger regional companies. Some may be absorbed by others, such as Thomas Brothers, which was purchased by Rand McNally in 1998. But even Rand is likely on the way out...

Sad, very sad. Google Maps, Mapquest, Yahoo! Maps, and Maps.live.com all use one of two data providers, NAVTEQ or TeleAtlas. Both are riddled with errors, showing things like U.S. 81 along Interstate 35 in San Antonio for instance...

[Scott5114]

The solution is having roadgeeks making the maps. Projects like OpenStreetMap work somewhat like Wikipedia. Anyone can contribute. Some might get up in arms about the reliability of it, but from the anecdotes above, I would actually be more inclined to trust OSM (in a few years, once it's more developed; right now it still has a lot of raw data which needs polish) than one of these professional map companies. Reason being that it's more likely that someone contributing to one of those projects has actually been to the places on the map.

However, these days I try to use state DOT maps when they're available. The Oklahoma DOT map is generally pretty accurate (there are a few hiccups, like OK-87 having a phantom concurrency into Idabel, though then again some things "hidden" in the field are shown, such as OK-14's concurrency into Alva) so I use it a lot. Of course some states have really great maps (Kansas), some have crappy maps (Louisiana), some states charge for their maps (S.C.) and some don't have state maps at all (California). So your mileage necessarily varies from state to state.

I have DeLorme's Oklahoma state atlas and it seems pretty good. I got it for Christmas and haven't really seen any blatant errors.

[SSOWorld]

I question OSM right off the top.  It looks like they got US 151 all mixed up for example - yes the routing is good, but not all of it is freeway in WI.

[Alex]

Well the OSM project you refer to sounds like another internet mapping application, not something that ends up in paper form.

I've never paid for a South Carolina official DOT map, where did you have to pay for one?

[Scott5114]

A couple of years ago I was looking around on state DOT websites requesting maps for random states I was tangentially interested in. I have a friend in SC so I decided to try and get ahold of a map from there, and they wanted a few dollars for it. I don't know; they may have changed the policy since then. I haven't checked recently.

[Chris]

This is my collection of U.S. state maps. Most of them are free ones from DOTs, but I bought some of them at Rand McNally.

[mapman1071]

Have you ever wondering about Rand McNally do also produce some of State Road Atlas...

Available states are:

California and portions of Nevada: First printed 1982, 24th Edition, released April 2008
Pacific Northwest: First printed 1998, 7th Edition, released May 2006...new 8th Edition coming in May 2009.
Arizona including Las Vegas: 1st Editon, released July 2006
Florida: 1st Edition, released July 2006
Texas: 1st Edition, released March 2007
The Carolinas: 1st Edition, released June 2007
Ohio: 1st Edition, released June 2007
Hawaii: 1st Edition, released October 2007
Colorado: 1st Edition released November 2007

Sources:
http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1232922098/ref=sr_st?keywords=rand+mcnally+state+road+atlas&rs=1000&page=1&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Arand+mcnally+state+road+atlas&sort=daterank
http://store.randmcnally.com/category/road+atlases/state+%26+specialty+atlases.do

California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona Atlases are Thomas Brothers Maps wrapped in Rand McNally Cover.

[Bickendan]

And tend to be more reliable than the others. It should be noted, though, that the PNW 8th edition uses the standard Rand symbology as opposed to the Thomas Bros symbology -- and it was only released this month, a year late.

Also, of interest, is that the Portland Thomas Guide has reverted to the Thomas Brothers symbology (but retained the Rand fonts and route shields). Backlash much? I suspect the same for the King, Snohomish and Pierce Thomas Guides as well -- and that the Spokane, Olympia, Kitsap Co, Boise and Reno Thomas Guides will match suit if ever updated.

btw: Necro much?

[bugo]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Google Maps (moreso than Mapquest, which it's a million times better than) has made paper maps and atlases pretty much completely obsolete.

Until Google Maps drastically improves the quality of their cartography and accuracy of their data, paper maps aren't obsolete.  They have improved as of late, but the cartography is still lacking.

[bugo]

However, these days I try to use state DOT maps when they're available. The Oklahoma DOT map is generally pretty accurate (there are a few hiccups, like OK-87 having a phantom concurrency into Idabel, though then again some things "hidden" in the field are shown, such as OK-14's concurrency into Alva) so I use it a lot. Of course some states have really great maps (Kansas), some have crappy maps (Louisiana), some states charge for their maps (S.C.) and some don't have state maps at all (California). So your mileage necessarily varies from state to state.

The ODOT maps are generally decent but the road lines aren't very accurate in some places.  The ODOT map's road lines tend to have straight lines and angled curves instead of smooth curves like, say, the RMN atlas.

I have DeLorme's Oklahoma state atlas and it seems pretty good. I got it for Christmas and haven't really seen any blatant errors.

I have the atlas The Roads of Oklahoma which is very nice.  I'm not sure where the data comes from but it doesn't look like ODOT county maps.  I had an Oklahoma DeLorme but water damage ruined it.

[Scott5114]

Really, though, for most travel purposes I don't really care if a map omits minor changes in alignment, since that can make the map difficult to read at a large scale if overdone. If there's a 20-mile stretch with a brief, gentle S curve in the middle, it doesn't really matter to me if it is omitted. However, I am against a radical, tube map-type oversimplification. If a road is especially curvy, that is pertinent information. A middle ground is nice.

[vdeane]

Until Google Maps drastically improves the quality of their cartography and accuracy of their data, paper maps aren't obsolete.  They have improved as of late, but the cartography is still lacking.

Indeed.  Google still has accuracy problems in upstate NY (I-86 in Horseheads doesn't have the exit ramps, and I-490 exit 11 is still in the old configuration), and portions of I-40 and I-70 are STILL shown as not existing.

[bugo]

Indeed.  Google still has accuracy problems in upstate NY (I-86 in Horseheads doesn't have the exit ramps, and I-490 exit 11 is still in the old configuration), and portions of I-40 and I-70 are STILL shown as not existing.

Not to mention that Google Maps doesn't seem to know the difference between bannered routes and mainline routes.

[LeftyJR]

Indeed.  Google still has accuracy problems in upstate NY (I-86 in Horseheads doesn't have the exit ramps, and I-490 exit 11 is still in the old configuration), and portions of I-40 and I-70 are STILL shown as not existing.

Not to mention that Google Maps doesn't seem to know the difference between bannered routes and mainline routes.

That is true...US-220 near my house is four land limited access, but it is shown as a two lane road...with EXITS.

[roadfro]

Not to mention that Google Maps doesn't seem to know the difference between bannered routes and mainline routes.

Google Maps does know the difference between special routes and regular routes, as the bannered routes are usually spelled out in their driving directions.

It's just that, for whatever reason, they don't show the banners or distinguish between the route types in their map symbology.  I'd imagine it wouldn't be that hard to code in something to make the banners show up, as other online map companies have done this for years.  Another similar issue is their tendency to show a full-color Interstate shield on city streets designated as Interstate business loops/spurs.

[Tom]

Have you ever wondering about Rand McNally do also produce some of State Road Atlas...

Available states are:

California and portions of Nevada: First printed 1982, 24th Edition, released April 2008
Pacific Northwest: First printed 1998, 7th Edition, released May 2006...new 8th Edition coming in May 2009.
Arizona including Las Vegas: 1st Editon, released July 2006
Florida: 1st Edition, released July 2006
Texas: 1st Edition, released March 2007
The Carolinas: 1st Edition, released June 2007
Ohio: 1st Edition, released June 2007
Hawaii: 1st Edition, released October 2007
Colorado: 1st Edition released November 2007

Sources:
http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1232922098/ref=sr_st?keywords=rand+mcnally+state+road+atlas&rs=1000&page=1&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Arand+mcnally+state+road+atlas&sort=daterank
http://store.randmcnally.com/category/road+atlases/state+%26+specialty+atlases.do

In the past, Rand McNally made state atlases of Michigan.  I don't know when they stopped, but I have seen them from 1944 and 1955.