Newsgroups: tor.general
Path: utzoo!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: CAA maps & Books (Was: Tourist mis-information)
Message-ID: <1990Feb11.114815.16439@sq.sq.com>
Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto
References: <1990Jan12.010029.19025@mcmi.uucp> <385@sickkids.UUCP> <1990Jan29.235112.9014@eci386.uucp> <33817@watmath.waterloo.edu> <1990Feb5.155733.23725@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <33992@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Distribution: tor
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 90 11:48:15 GMT

> ... the symbol shapes for the various highway
> numbers don't correspond to the shapes on the road signs.
> ... [the map] ... uses "standard" CAA symbols ...

I would consider this a *feature*.  I'd rather learn one symbol for
"state/provincial highway" for all map-reading, and translate that into
whatever I see locally.

> e.g. you look out your car window and see two different highways
> labelled 9, one on a square sign and on a state-map shaped sign,
> but the one on the CAA map is in a circle.

This situation is actually quite rare, and for it to happen before one
had been in the state long enough to know that the state-map shaped
sign was the symbol for a state highway is vanishingly rare.

Besides, in many jurisdictions either there are two or three different
shapes used to represent a state or provincial highway, or else signs for
freeway exits to state highways only give the number and no symbol at all.
(Ontario, for instance, has two different symbols for "King's Highways"--
one mostly used for freeway exits, one everywhere else.)

Personally, I use the Rand McNally Road Atlas for "global planning" of
what North American road travel I do.  I'll be the first to admit that
its detail is often inadequate for particular areas, because the need
for portable size limits its scale, but I find the consistent symbols a
virtue.  Indeed, I was rather dismayed when they decided to redraft all
the maps a few years ago; I had to relearn the legend (free freeways
changed from green to blue, for instance).  But I only had to do it once.
And by the way, its maps do give exit numbers.

-- 
Mark Brader			"It's simply a matter of style, and while there
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto		 are many wrong styles, there really isn't any
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com	 one right style."	-- Ray Butterworth

This article is in the public domain.