2012 Rand McNally

[PAHighways]

I actually got a response, and it looks like 376 won't be included until the 2013 edition.  So my advice is, whatever other errors you find in the 2012, let them know via Facebook.

[mightyace]

It's of course marked on the PennDOT map, just order that one.

Thanks for the link.  I ordered mine and took less than a minute.

[hbelkins]

The 2012 R McN was at the Walmart in the town where I work when I stopped there at lunch today. One new thing I noticed is that the Ashland, Ky. area is now included in the Huntington, WV inset and the inset is associated with the WV page, not the KY page.

For years, the atlas has indicated that the OH 7 bypass of Chesapeake is completed, when such is not the case at all. That error is still in evidence in the current atlas.

[Alex]

The 2012 R McN was at the Walmart in the town where I work when I stopped there at lunch today. One new thing I noticed is that the Ashland, Ky. area is now included in the Huntington, WV inset and the inset is associated with the WV page, not the KY page.

They moved Ashland to Huntington's inset by 2011's edition.

[Kacie Jane]

I've found 2 more errors somewhat similar to the notorious I-170 shield that are in both the 2011 and 2012 editions, but were correct in the 2010 edition.

• In Washington, there is an SR 603 shield between Napavine and Winlock.  SR 603 was decommissioned in 1992.  (Google maps has the same error.  The road is still named "Highway 603" for street addresses, but is county maintained.)
  
• In the 2010 edition on the Georgia main map (not the Atlanta inset), there is an I-285 shield inside the beltway, but with an arrow pointing to the correct highway.  In 2011/12, the shield is shifted slightly to the left so that it is actually on I-75/85 instead of floating to the side of it, and the arrow has disappeared.

This, combined with several of the comments here, makes me wonder....

Has anyone actually confirmed that there were any changes to the maps between the 2011 and 2012 editions?

Edit:  Apologies for my idiocy and not re-reading the first post in this thread.  Good to know they found something to update while they were busy not fixing these errors.

[agentsteel53]

Has anyone actually confirmed that there were any changes to the maps between the 2011 and 2012 editions?

yes.  OR-380 has two shields - one on the actual 380 (between Prineville and Paulina), and one past the official end of the state route.  They were not present on the 2011 map.

this is highly deceptive, actually, because (if one believes that all Oregon state routes are paved, and I do), an attempt to follow "380" from Prineville to Burns will lead you to a dirt road.  I had to backtrack 83 miles to Prineville because it was raining and the road was turning to mud!

also, speaking of dirt roads, the 2012 RMN uses a new style of line to mark its dirt roads which is virtually impossible to differentiate from the gray line of the paved roads of lowest importance.  This, in my view, is a critical blunder and renders the map essentially unusable.

[xonhulu]

Has anyone actually confirmed that there were any changes to the maps between the 2011 and 2012 editions?

yes.  OR-380 has two shields - one on the actual 380 (between Prineville and Paulina), and one past the official end of the state route.  They were not present on the 2011 map.

this is highly deceptive, actually, because (if one believes that all Oregon state routes are paved, and I do), an attempt to follow "380" from Prineville to Burns will lead you to a dirt road.  I had to backtrack 83 miles to Prineville because it was raining and the road was turning to mud!

I don't know about the road that cuts down to Burns, but the road that runs from Paulina to US 395 just north of Seneca is paved the entire way.

As for 380; that means there are more 380 shields in the RMcN atlas (2) than there are on the actual highway (1), as of last summer, at least.

There are 2 unpaved Oregon state routes:  OR 27 south of Prineville Reservoir, and the northern 5 miles of OR 413 to Cornucopia, although that highway isn't signed yet.

[agentsteel53]

I don't know about the road that cuts down to Burns, but the road that runs from Paulina to US 395 just north of Seneca is paved the entire way.

can you give me the exact alignment of this?  (names like "forest 41", etc, which I can follow on google maps?)  I must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. 

I programmed the GPS to "Burns" when I was in Paulina, and followed its route.  It never flashed a warning of "road is dirt" so I proceeded bravely.

380 turns into Paulina Suplee Road when it ends in the town of Paulina.  Then I turned off onto the Weberg Road, which is County Hwy 69.  Then, at National Forest Development Road 41, the county road was marked "private" and turned to dirt.  Forest 41 was paved, so I turned onto that.  It dirted out within about a mile. 

Looking at google maps, it appears the dirt section is brief - maybe only about 3 miles to the junction with Forest 43, but I had no idea about that (already the GPS had lied to me - and RMN did show that road as paved, unless I had mistaken one anonymous little grey line on the map with another).

It was just past sunset and the weather was getting shittier and shittier so I just turned around and hightailed it back to Prineville as opposed to risking getting stuck in the mud at night.

As for 380; that means there are more 380 shields in the RMcN atlas (2) than there are on the actual highway (1), as of last summer, at least.

correct.  I just saw one, at that T-junction, but I forget with which road.  I didn't even notice the shield on the way out - just, well after dark, on the way in.  I just remember it's just south of the outskirts of Prineville.

There are 2 unpaved Oregon state routes:  OR 27 south of Prineville Reservoir, and the northern 5 miles of OR 413 to Cornucopia, although that highway isn't signed yet.

good to know.  and 380 is not one of them.  though 27 is generally in the right area!

[xonhulu]

I don't know about the road that cuts down to Burns, but the road that runs from Paulina to US 395 just north of Seneca is paved the entire way.

can you give me the exact alignment of this?  (names like "forest 41", etc, which I can follow on google maps?)  I must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. 

I programmed the GPS to "Burns" when I was in Paulina, and followed its route.  It never flashed a warning of "road is dirt" so I proceeded bravely.

380 turns into Paulina Suplee Road when it ends in the town of Paulina.  Then I turned off onto the Weberg Road, which is County Hwy 69.  Then, at National Forest Development Road 41, the county road was marked "private" and turned to dirt.  Forest 41 was paved, so I turned onto that.  It dirted out within about a mile. 

Weberg Rd is where you went astray.  Past that point, the main road becomes what Google Maps calls "Izee Hwy," although it's also labeled as "Izee County Line Rd" and "Co. Hwy 67."  Then it seems to change to "Izee Ranch to County Line Rd" and "Co. Hwy 63."  On the east end, they label it "Izee Paulina Ln."

My De Lorme atlas calls it Paulina Suplee Hwy to the jct with Weberg Rd, then Izee Ranch to County Line Rd (until the jct with the S. Fork John Day Rd), followed by Izee Paulina Ln to Izee, and finally Izee Rd to Bush Ranch Rd.

I think at every junction this route is the through route.  I didn't have any trouble following it, but I went east-to-west both times I've driven it.

Cool drive, by the way.  I was impressed by the variety of landscapes and the general isolation.  US 26 is probably slightly more scenic, but this is definitely an interesting alternative.

correct.  I just saw one, at that T-junction, but I forget with which road.  I didn't even notice the shield on the way out - just, well after dark, on the way in.  I just remember it's just south of the outskirts of Prineville.

It's called Juniper Canyon Rd, I think.

good to know.  and 380 is not one of them.  though 27 is generally in the right area!

One wonders why OR 27 even exists, with the much superior Millican Rd just a few miles west.  I guess it's just one of those interesting artifacts of the early years of the state highway system.

[agentsteel53]

Weberg Rd is where you went astray.  Past that point, the main road becomes what Google Maps calls "Izee Hwy," although it's also labeled as "Izee County Line Rd" and "Co. Hwy 67."  Then it seems to change to "Izee Ranch to County Line Rd" and "Co. Hwy 63."  On the east end, they label it "Izee Paulina Ln."

yep, the GPS told me to turn south on Weberg Road.  I did not have a good understanding of which named road, per the GPS, matched up with which gray line on the RMN map - and, in fact, to this day I still cannot tell which gray lines on RMN represent dirt and which are paved.  (Again, a horrific strategic decision by RMN.  Labeling both arterials and full expressways as "orange line" is irritating, but at worst an inconvenience - making both dirt and paved roads nearly indistinguishable gray lines borders on legally actionable.)

[xonhulu]

yep, the GPS told me to turn south on Weberg Road.  I did not have a good understanding of which named road, per the GPS, matched up with which gray line on the RMN map - and, in fact, to this day I still cannot tell which gray lines on RMN represent dirt and which are paved.  (Again, a horrific strategic decision by RMN.  Labeling both arterials and full expressways as "orange line" is irritating, but at worst an inconvenience - making both dirt and paved roads nearly indistinguishable gray lines borders on legally actionable.)

Yeah, I don't get that at all.  If any piece of information is important to distinguish on the roads, you think it would be type of surface.  Not only should gravel be differentiated from paved, but dirt ought to be further distinguished from gravel.  But in the atlas, it's almost impossible to see any difference.

When I take trips off the highway in Oregon, I try to bring the De Lorme -- more detail, although they don't cover eastern Oregon at the same scale as the west.

[xonhulu]

As for 380; that means there are more 380 shields in the RMcN atlas (2) than there are on the actual highway (1), as of last summer, at least.

correct.  I just saw one, at that T-junction, but I forget with which road.  I didn't even notice the shield on the way out - just, well after dark, on the way in.  I just remember it's just south of the outskirts of Prineville.

Jake: was the one you saw this shield, marked for the side road coming onto 380, that has been there for 3 years:



Or was it this shield just past that intersection on 380 itself:



The second is brand new to me, as it wasn't there late last summer.  If it wasn't there when you went through, then it's only been up a very short time.

Regrettably, I didn't have time to drive all the way to Paulina and back to see if there were any others put up.  Future trip.

[agentsteel53]

I saw the shield at the T junction.  Definitely did not spot the eastbound reassurance marker.  I was there Sunday the 29th.  I am pretty sure the shield was not, unless I just completely whiffed on spotting it.

[xonhulu]

I saw the shield at the T junction.  Definitely did not spot the eastbound reassurance marker.  I was there Sunday the 29th.  I am pretty sure the shield was not, unless I just completely whiffed on spotting it.

No way you could have missed it; it was just a couple hundred yards past that intersection.  It must have gone up in the last 3 weeks.

Still nothing indicating 380 on US 26, though.  You'd think that would be the important spot to mark the highway.

[agentsteel53]

it was early evening; had there been a shield, I would have spotted it, and photographed it in good light.

kind of a neat coincidence, then, that I missed the shield because it was installed just days later.

I once (on April 10, 2007) came across an abandoned car that was had been clearly lying in a field out in the desert since the 70s.  There were two scratched-in dates: one was something from 1982, the other, fresh bright metal, April 9, 2007.

[xonhulu]

This isn't new to the 2012 atlas, as it's been in there for the past few years, but I'm still amused that the Portland, OR inset map still has 99W on Interstate Ave in north Portland.  Even better, it still displays OR 208 over in Beaverton: that route hasn't existed since 1982!

[Android]

Allright, instead of nitpicking road revisions, I want to interject my own general RM-Atlas bitchfest! 

I decided to look at this thread only after buying the newest "2012" RM atlas.  Last month I took a road trip and the day before we left, I thought I'd buy a new atlas since my last one was from 2006.  That one was the full size Travel Guide (spiral) bound style from Walmart.  I had no idea that RM had changed publication dates to this ludicrous half-year-ahead BS, but I guess that was the reason I coudln't find any large size RM atlases in any stores I went to.  Heck, I thought maybe the GPS and online mapping companies had killed off the traditional road atlas or something!   So I just went and used my 2006RM Deluxe and an old 1996 Gousha. 

Anyway, the day after I get back from the trip, I go in to Sam's Club and see they had the 2012 out, in the spiral binding ("Festival Guide").  So I got it.  Then took it home and compared it to the old one.  (I have a metal-spiral "Deluxe" from 2000 as well - these days I seem to buy them only every few years)  And then I read this thread and looked at it some more. 

I'm kind of disgusted.   First of all "Printed in China, Published in USA"   ugh. 



While it does appear that everything on the map has been redrawn since my 2006 copy, and the twists and turns of the roads and other details may be a little bit more accurate, that's offset by some poor lithographing.  It was mentioned about the difference betwen dirt and paved roads - on the 2006 when there was a road that went from dirt to gravel it was pretty easy to spot.  Now it's just so damn fuzzy - there still is a difference but really...    I was looking at the Wyoming map since I live there... and a good example is the back road from Chugwater to Horse Creek is one of those that has a dirt section in the middle.   And it's really hard to tell that on the map anymore.   

Another thing I didn't notice at first was the lack of town elevations.  When and why did they get rid of those?

Another beef is in the typesetting choices of the numbers.  In 2006 they were just starting to switch to the Highway-Gothic-inspired numerals in the shields.  That was cool, no problem with that.  But at that time, the rest of the numbers were all in the previous typeface and the old EXIT numbers as well.   Now all that stuff is now in Highway-Gothic style and they didn't do a very good job.  The new green EXIT number boxes are OK - but there aren't enough of them sometimes.  The old style allowed for more to be tagged.   Or they need to add some along with arrows to what they have now. And some of the spot-distances-between-roads, the new typeface is so dang narrow compared to before, it's harder to read.

One thing I had liked about that 2006 spiral/Travel Guide version was the regional maps in the front.  I've used them for longer distance planning.  But now they have them all in the back... scattered amongst the "Festival Guide" that this book now has instead of a Travel Guide.  I guess they felt there were too many "travel guide" type books out there so they had to do a "festival guide" instead?     And then people with smart phones can use their bar code things to get the travel guide stuff?  So what about me, who doesn't have, nor want to have, one of those phones? 

The last thing I want to bitch about are the bounding boxes around Metro Areas indicating an closeup/inset is in the book somewhere.   They used to be a nice noticable yellow with a contasting red line - now they are a dull gray and you can't hardly even see them... pretty much useless.

The only improvement is the price tag, it was only 10.88 this year.  The 2006 one was 12.82.  My 2000 version is missing the back cover so I can't find a price on that one.   I'm not so annoyed to return it though, it'll just get added to my collection of atlases.   

[shadyjay]

Picked up the 2012 version at Walmart earlier this week.  One significant difference in New England that I have noticed that is different from the 2011 version is I-95 ending at I-91 in New Haven CT and restarting on the east side of the Quinnipiac River, as shown on the BRIDGEPORT/NEW HAVEN insert.

Other than that, I haven't noticed any changes in New England.  I'm still waiting for the day RMcN realizes that the so-called "rest areas" along I-95 in CT, a pair on I-90 in western Mass, and those in Maryland north of Baltimore are actually service areas, despite the roads not being tolled, and identifies them as such.

[mightyace]

^^^

Well, until some folks here posted some photos, I didn't know that the "Rest Area" on the Western Kentucky Parkway just west of the Natcher Parkway was a service area either.

[texaskdog]

I need to get a new atlas for my trip next month.  What would be the most accurate & user friendly (and not ungodly ugly).  Used my 2004 for last month's trip to NO and didnt check to see the big crease running along I-10 in Texas.  Had to use it like a Mad magazine fold-in

[Scott5114]

If you only need a few states I would get the DeLorme Gazetteer atlases. They are zoomed in enough that you can do some pretty elaborate reroutes on back country roads if need be...or scan your route for possible old alignments that might be worth observing.

[agentsteel53]

If you only need a few states I would get the DeLorme Gazetteer atlases. They are zoomed in enough that you can do some pretty elaborate reroutes on back country roads if need be...or scan your route for possible old alignments that might be worth observing.

I much prefer the Benchmark Roads and Recreation series to the Delorme, but alas those are only available for Rocky Mountains and west of there.

the reason is: the Delormes do not differentiate between dirt and paved roads, and sometimes show as a good through route a road that has not been maintained since 1977, and has had a bridge taken out since then!  Had I followed my Delorme literally, there would have been places where I would've pitched off a cliff.

my Benchmark atlases have, so far, never let me down as far as telling me that a road is paved when it is gravel/dirt.  they also make an attempt to differentiate between a good high-quality graded dirt road, where you can go 45mph safely even in a low-clearance two-wheel drive car, and a two-track path which should be strictly avoided in said vehicle.

[vdeane]

Was the Delorme in question having data more recent than 1977?  For dome reason Delorme doesn't seem to update their data very often; they came out with a new NY edition somewhat recently (I'd say within the past couple of years; it doesn't seem to be as good about showing everything as past editions), but the previous edition pre-dates I-86!

[FLRoads]

On my weekly excursion to Wal-Mart this morning something told me to revisit the 2012 Rand again. Low and behold it was an updated version! To my surprise they now have Interstate 520 shown as complete to Interstate 20 northeast of Augusta (on both the inset and main map) and the PA 60 shields have been replaced with Interstate 376 shields. A green BL I-376 shield even appears in the Pittsburgh inset. The only thing they neglected to do in that inset was reset the exit numbers along I-376; they still reflect its original mileage before the extension. I really did not notice any other changes, but this is a start. I checked the front and the first part of their product code (on the legends page near the front of the atlas) had changed to a 2, indicating that it was a second edition of the atlas. Maybe Rand decided to go ahead and push out some of the changes instead of waiting for their 2013 release...

[ftballfan]

In Michigan, my 2011 atlas doesn't have an exit at US-127 and M-57, even though there has been one there for a few years now. And it has the US-31 freeway from Napier Ave to I-94 under construction, even though it was canceled a few years ago. But it does have exit numbers listed for the US-31 freeway north of I-96, which were first posted with the switch to Clearview.