Map Errors (Paper and Virtual alike)

[City]

We all know that even a mapmaker can make errors. I have been noticing some erroneous things in Google Maps and I'd like to share them. If you find errors on Google Maps and such, feel free to tell them here. I have found some, and I'd like to share them.

These are from Google Maps.

Lexington-Fayette's location is off, as it is out of the city, but near it. I (think) that it is also too small of a city to have such a big dot on the map.

Wrong Location for the Name:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.971809,-84.433365&spn=0.235461,0.441513&z=11

A bigger dot than Louisville?:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=38.182069,-84.589233&spn=1.8782,3.532104&z=8


Maine and Nova Scotia, according to Google Maps, is a national border, not an international border. (This is supposed to be a international water border.)

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=43.768119,-69.598389&spn=0.215697,0.441513&z=11

Feel free to share yours!

~City

(let's open it up to paper too -ms)

[Bickendan]

Don't get me started with Google Maps and errors. I don't have enough paper for a list.

Consider this to start: BC 3B is cosigned with BC 3 for BC 3's entire length.

All the provincial route markers Google used got switched to trapezoids for a spell, marking no visual distinction with secondary highways at all (very bad for making files for the Clinched Highways site).

Decommissioned highways are a mainstay. We'll know it's really bad when US 6 returns to Long Beach.

The Google Maps symbology. (Must... not... rant...)

Oftimes map overlay on Satellite view is off; particularly bad in the higher latitudes.

[PAHighways]

I liked that they included the PA routes that were decommissioned after WWII, as it helped me with their histories.

[yanksfan6129]

Oftentimes I see US Highways marked with state highway markers, a CIRCLE FOR EVERY STATE X(

[algorerhythms]

There are too many errors in Google Maps to find them all, but here are some of the ones that I know of in western Maryland (most of them are minor, but meh)...

MD 956 is shown as MD 9.
Zihlman, MD, is shown as "Zihmah."
Eckhart Mines is shown as being a mile or two west of its correct location
Burning Mines Road is shown as going to Dan's Rock (the road was washed out in a flood decades ago and never rebuilt)
It shows a ghost road paralleling MD 638.
It shows MD 36 forking and going two different directions in eastern Frostburg.

An amusing side-effect of one error is that if you type in "Nothing", the first suggestion is "Frostburg, Maryland"

[Chris]

Google Maps often signs US Routes as State Routes, and vice versa. Also, Business, Alternate etc. are often just shown as US Routes.

[City]

I found another one.

Google Maps claims that Interstate 99 has one carriageway between US-322 until it ends at US-220. 

[vdeane]

Only MapQuest shows that portion as complete.  The same has happened with the new US 15 freeway.  Ironically, while Google does not have that on maps, it does have it on street view, resulting in micro sections of street view that don't seem to correspond to anything that are actually the freeway.

[cu2010]

NY458 between its western terminus at NY11B and the St. Lawrence-Franklin county line is shown as NY11B...although "State Rte 458" is shown as the route name.

Also, my address is shown as being on the wrong side of the road!

[Tom]

If it's okay 2 include map errors from the good ol' fashioned folding paper road maps, here's 1.  I recall seeing a 1964 Rand McNally Michigan road map showing M-131 starting at US-31 by Petoskey and going up to Cross Village, then turning east and returning to US-31 in Levering.  The error is that M-131 only went as far as Cross Village.

[SSOWorld]

If it's okay 2 include map errors from the good ol' fashioned folding paper road maps, here's 1.  I recall seeing a 1964 Rand McNally Michigan road map showing M-131 starting at US-31 by Petoskey and going up to Cross Village, then turning east and returning to US-31 in Levering.  The error is that M-131 only went as far as Cross Village.

That'd be ok here.

Need not mention the phantom freeway bypass under construction forever in the Rand McNally atlas.

[Roadgeek Adam]

AAA maps for NY has a bunch of strango errors:

NY 31C still marked (decommissioned 2003)
NY 99 still marked (decommissioned 1996)
NY 132A still marked (decommissioned 1972)
NY 194 still marked (decommissioned 1980)

There were more

[deathtopumpkins]

VA-167's evidently still alive on LaSalle Ave in Hampton, VA according to my 2010 Rand McNally. In fact it even shows it extending down Chesapeake Ave, which I doubt it ever did, considering that that is just a little street with no markings or even an actual curb.

Plus it tends to show a lot of 4-lane divided highways as 2-lane, is missing a lot of recent bypasses (primarily US-17 in NE NC), and even shows US-17 in VA still using the old alignment along the Dismal Swamp Canal.

[Ian]

Here is a crazy one. On US 20 in Sturbridge, MA (near I-84's east end), there are US 29 shields!
http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=42.123883,-72.053061&spn=0.030557,0.076818&t=h&z=14

Google maps also tends to sign the hidden designations for routes with hidden designations. They also have a huge problem with signing US routes as state routes. Oh and in Pennsylvania, the minor SR xxxx routes are signed.

Not a true error, but the final couple of miles of New Hampshire's Spaulding Turnpike/NH 16 super-2 is signed as a surface road, when it should be a freeway:
http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=43.307317,-70.980949&spn=0.059959,0.153637&t=h&z=13

[74/171FAN]

VA-167's evidently still alive on LaSalle Ave in Hampton, VA according to my 2010 Rand McNally. In fact it even shows it extending down Chesapeake Ave, which I doubt it ever did, considering that that is just a little street with no markings or even an actual curb.

VA 167 is even still shown on the VDOT map as of the 2008-2010 edition 

[Chris]

I think I found this error on the 2010 Large Scale Rand McNally Road Atlas.

US 501 here to the right of the picture should've been US 158. US 501 runs north-south from Durham into Virginia.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Fairly sure that US 501 icon should be US 158 (the one west of US 29 is correct, anyway).

[mightyace]

Fairly sure that US 501 icon should be US 158 (the one west of US 29 is correct, anyway).

Since even paper maps are created digitally these days, it could be a cut and paste error.  i.e. They copied a US-501 shield and forgot to change the number.

[deathtopumpkins]

Yeah that's definitely 158. I've even been down that way somewhat recently with that same atlas and never even noticed that. 

[njroadhorse]

Apparently there's an NJ 55 bypass of Freehold in the 09 Rand atlas.

[WillWeaverRVA]

The American Maps South Hampton Roads atlas has VA 337 ALT on a segment of VA 239 from US 17 to VA 337 in Portsmouth.

American Map also has secondary routes in various independent cities and in Henrico County, which don't actually have them. Virginia independent cities not named Suffolk do not have SRs, nor do Arlington or Henrico Counties (though Henrico did once have them on paper, and Nuckols Rd was once erroneously signed as SR 695 at I-295 early in the 2000s).  Interestingly, they correctly don't show SRs in Arlington County.

The Greater Richmond maps have SR 627 (Meadowbridge Rd), SR 683 (Forest Hill Ave), and SR 686 (Jahnke Rd) within the city limits; and SR 625 (Greenwood Rd), 627 (Richmond-Henrico Tnpk), and 650 (River Rd) in Henrico County. This isn't unique to just Richmond, but Richmond is probably the most convenient example. I sent an email to them about it, but the errors were not corrected in the 2009 editions of some of the maps.

[deathtopumpkins]

I know that the VA 337 ALT and some of the SRs in independent cities go back at least to the 2003 edition of the South Hampton Roads one, as I've throughly examined all of it over these years. Though I wasn't sure that the VA 337 ALT one was an error, as that whole routing confuses me.

[froggie]

VA-167's evidently still alive on LaSalle Ave in Hampton, VA according to my 2010 Rand McNally. In fact it even shows it extending down Chesapeake Ave, which I doubt it ever did, considering that that is just a little street with no markings or even an actual curb.

Yes it did.  VA 167 was extended west along Chesapeake Ave (at the time called the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Hwy) out to Indian River (near Powhatan Pkwy) ca. 1940, then to the Newport News line ca. 1944, then finally along 16th St to Jefferson Ave ca. 1950 (later, in 1958, continuing north along Jefferson Ave to VA 143 at 28th St).

The American Maps South Hampton Roads atlas has VA 337 ALT on a segment of VA 239 from US 17 to VA 337 in Portsmouth.

Probably an offshoot of the "VA 337" error along that segment of VA 239 on the ADC Maps (ADC and American Map are owned by the same parent company).

[getemngo]

The official Michigan Transportation Map has shown County Highway H-16, a highway that does not and never has existed, in 1983, 1984, and every year since 1992.  It's actually National Forest Highway 16.

Rand McNally had M-179 marked as M-79 for a couple years.  It almost makes more sense, but it's not true.

[Chris]

Google Earth should really do something about the FM and RM roads in Texas by the way. You have to zoom in very far to read the number (written as a street name).