AlanMiller wrote:Incidentally Chris, what is your source of all these city maps?
In general, "the web".
It is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain maps that one can hold in one's hand, carry on to a bus, or pin up on a wall to annotate and plan one's trip.
Even Indigo here in Toronto doesn't stock 1;10,000 or 1:5,000 maps of Madrid. Four years ago I bought maps to that scale of Paris environs; made the bus trips most enjoyable.
Printed maps serve as a passport to help; locals will volunteer to help me by pointing out where we are; a conversation ensues ('You're an AusTRAILian?!!???")
St John's Newfoundland (a) no longer hands out its city maps to tourists; although a printed copy is pinned up on every manager's wall. They just don't want the public to have a hard-copy. You are supposed to go to the web and print one out. Best of luck finding a 42" colour printer in St John's on any morning, let alone a weekend.
This is the same Bus system that built its new headquarters so far out of town that it is beyond all the regular bus routes.
The helpful clerk in the "i"nformation Kiosk at Poissy apologized; they had bus maps until last year (2015) he told me, but now all you get is a little concertina map. You are supposed to KNOW where you are going. that is, the system does not cater to footloose tourists.
For years now Toronto has made its
P*A*T*H maps so prohibitively expensive that no-one stocks them. Not hotels
(1), not libraries, not information desks, not even City Hall itself. Lack of demand appears to have been the reason for pulling the plug on production of the maps. Go Figure.
Thirty kilometres of linked underground pathway, but no map for visitors.
Oh, sorry. I forgot to tuen on the RANT smiley. Bit late now. ...
(1)That's not quite true. The hotels go to the web and print the map out in black-and-white on a letter-size sheet of paper and slide it across the desk to me.
I rotate it 180 degrees, jab at the hotel I'm in and ask the pert clerk "Can you tell me what building this is?", and they never can.
It's about the only fun I get out of life nowadays ....
(signed) "Grumpier-than-usual" of Toronto
(2)
(2) Go look it up on the web, don't ask me for a map ....