2000 Rand McNally Map of Louisville
Our favorite big behemoth of maps appears to be in the process of converting all of their city street maps to new digital cartography. While in stores you can still find their glove-compartment maps of Louisville with the Gousha cartography dating back to 1997, their spiral-bound StreetFinder Atlas of Louisville and Jefferson County is available now. If you go to the AAA and ask for a map of Louisville you will get an updated version of the RMcN/Gousha map dated 1999.
This product's main positive characteristic is its greatly expanded coverage area and street index and address finder, similar to MAPSCO's Louisville Street Guide and Directory.
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The cartography style is unmistakeable, neither particularly bad nor particularly good, RMcN. You will also notice that the grid system is based on longitude and latitude coordinates! You will also notice what is either a major error or a copyright trap at the bottom. St. Andrews Church Road, the thick black line east of Dixie Highway (US 60/31W), connects *directly* to Greenwood Road (KY 1931), the thick black line west of Dixie Highway; it doesn't jog temporarily on Dixie Highway. If it's a copyright trap then it's a poorly chosen one because you are supposed to involve minor streets, not a major connecting road that serves a large employment center such as Riverport Industrial Park! Unfortunately the map also contains numerous other errors and inaccuracies. Fortunately, they're mostly nitpicks. |
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More minor digital cartography annoyances. I would have drawn the realigned runways of Louisville National Airport just a little less sloppy, and would not recommend that pilots use this map to land a plane. Also notice that interchanges are still drawn kind of sloppy, perfectly justifiable in non-digital cartography. Also, The Watterson Expressway has not been US 60 for over a decade. I also think Grade Lane should be renamed (as indicated by this map) as Grape Lane for real, it sounds delicious. |