29 replies to this topic

[Justadude]

As someone who actually likes reading maps, this would drive me positively insane.  What possible benefit could there be to rotating a map away from the perspective of the viewer?

[elvigy]

Justadude, on Jan 18 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

As someone who actually likes reading maps, this would drive me positively insane.  What possible benefit could there be to rotating a map away from the perspective of the viewer?

Agreed. Fer cryin' out loud, most people have a hard enough time reading maps (not me, of course   ) without the orientation of the map changing from block to block, sign to sign or building to building.

[atlrvr]

I actually emailed council, and got a very long winded, if very defensive answer, from the staff project coordinator for the whole uptown way-finding system.  They didn't like my assertion that they "randomly" divided the city into abstract districts.  It was nice to get detailed feedback, it still didn't convince me though.

[dubone]

I also dislike that they opted to relegate the wards to just the areas that had residences 5-10 years ago.  In other words, instead of keeping the traditional Trade and Tryon boundaries that have long indicated the different wards, they picked a random boundary based on a residential cluster at a single point in time.  I mean, look at the boundary for 'First Ward' that they chose, it blatantly skips the area that is under construction with Enclave and Quarterside.  They were really shortsighted to try to use this type of boundary rather than the unbelievably simple ACTUAL boundary of the wards (quadrisected by Trade and Tryon).

All in all, regardless of what some staffer says, these maps show possibly the least regard for the history and the 'place' of uptown, and is basically pandering to the people that are not really trying to learn about a place.

They look well done otherwise, but the actual contents of the maps are just awful.

[Raintree21]

Anyone notice if the rest of the horrible colored Uptown South/North/etc. signs have been removed or was that only omitted on this particular map?

[Mobuchu]

No, they are all still there, this is the only one that didn't do the colors.

I dont see this as being as bad because there was no way for them to fit the entire thing vertical.  (other then making it smaller).  The rest of the signs however.....crap.

[monsoon]

I think one of the more insidious things about these maps and concept is they have simply thrown in the towel and have essentially admitted that downtown (uptown) is now defined by I-277 and I-77.  Most of these roads didn't exist 25-30 years ago and certainly make up a very small portion of Charlotte's history.  Yet now we define our city by these highways.    It's an amazing admission of the failure of urban planning in Charlotte that I don't think anyone realizes.    

One would have hoped they might have taken another approach and defined the city by something other than NCDOT highways.  Think about it.

[dubone]

I know!  Although uptown has long had a similar boundary as the current 277 loop (Boundary Street, for example, was replaced by Belk Freeway), but we are now in an era where we are trying to restore walking interactivity across the freeway, so this is another negative aspect of these stupid signs.    Why not have them go to Morehead, Kings, and the Seaboard Railroad?  That would be closer to history, and help support the walking routes to Met Midtown,  Little Sugar Creek Greenway, Historic Alpha Mill, etc.  Why not use these maps to help support this trend and plan?

These are just symbols of almost everything wrong with how those types of people think of uptown.  I bet they drive in from their SouthPark area homes everyday and worked with out of town consultants that didn't have more than a ten minute primer on the city.  Are they planning up replace these signs every year when stuff gets built?  Are they going to change their 'ward' boundaries every year when random projects get built?  What in the world will they do when there is actually a mixture of residential with everything else?  I guess it simply won't count as being part of the Ward neighborhood at all, it'll just be placeless 'Uptown North' or something.

[grodney]

Mobuchu, on Jan 19 2008, 12:11 PM, said:

I dont see this as being as bad because there was no way for them to fit the entire thing vertical. (other then making it smaller).

I think smaller would have been better.  There's no real reason it needed to be that big.

North isn't up.
Logical north isn't up.
The way you are facing isn't up.

One of those really needs to be true.  In my opinion.

Edited by grodney, 19 January 2008 - 02:48 PM.

[grodney]

I don't know when it went away, but this map is gone now.  (Could have been a long time ago -- I'm not very observant.)

Edited by grodney, 04 August 2011 - 05:59 AM.