Posts Tagged “maps”

I while ago I heard a rumor that there was a border dispute between Cambridge and Somerville. I wasn’t able to get any confirmation, so I put it out of my mind. But now it appears that I might have fallen right into it. I know what you’re thinking. This is just the sort of thing that could happen only to me. Perhaps.

As you may know, I live in Central Square, Cambridge, and work in Davis Square, Somerville. My car is registered and permitted to park in Cambridge. I don’t normally drive to work, but sometimes if I have to drive somewhere after work, it makes sense to drive there and then hop in my car directly after work. So I decided to try and optimize things by finding the point in Cambridge closest to my office in Somerville, and parking there free. It was surprisingly difficult to find an authoritative map of the border, but I eventually dug up this street cleaning zone map on the Cambridge DPW web site.  For what it’s worth, the Somerville web site had zero helpful information.

Based on this, I decided that parking on the East side of Russell street near the corner of Elm would be the optimal location, just inside the Cambridge line, but about as close to Davis square as possible. In the past, I had parked lower down Russell street where both sides are clearly Cambridge. Today I got a spot in front of 44 Russell street, a couple of houses from the corner.

Officer Soares saw it differently.

For $20 I might have sucked it up, but for $40, I decided to stand by my city’s DPW map and look into this. I visited the Cambridge police station near my home and consulted the large map on the wall. It seemed to match the street sweeping map. An officer asked me what I was doing, and I explained the situation. He picked up a phone, called some number and asked, “44 Russell street, is that us or Somerville?” and told me that it was in fact a Cambridge address. He did note that it was possible that the city line existed between the house and the curb, but could not confirm one way or the other. One could argue that the DPW map above shows that, but I assumed it was sloppy illustration.  That’s what happens when you assume, but it still sounds like reasonable doubt to me.

The back of the ticket states, “This violation may also be appealed and adjudicated by mail if supporting documentation is mailed within 21 days of issuance.” I got home and began to assemble my case. I checked a source perhaps even more respected than the police. I searched “44 Russell Street, Cambridge, MA” and got a nice map. Just to make sure, I then tried “44 Russell Street, Somerville, MA” and look what I got:

Very interesting. I think I can say with certainty that #44 is in Cambridge. Now I have to go back to the scene and double check the signs to see if there are any clues to the ownership of the street itself. So far, I haven’t been able to see any “permit parking only” signs that say Cambridge or Somerville on them.

No doubt, this story is to be continued…

Let me call to your attention two excellent maps that in my humble opinion should make sweet cartographic love and spawn a mashup of some sort. This confluence of maps, blogs and public transportation has got the limeduck quacking loudly.

First up, Boston Blogs’ map of Boston blog by T stop.

Still in beta, this excellent map is simply the MBTA’s official subway (and Silver line) map with a link at each station to blogs tagged with that T stop. It looks like Davis square is the belle of the ball with 25 blogs as of this writing, and my own dear Central has a respectable showing at 15 blogs. The Red line is not surprisingly the bloggiest MBTA line.

My second nominee is Unmapped Boston from Unmapped Cities.

This is a completely new view of the Boston area. It combines major streets, subway routes, and most importantly, a pretty comprehensive list of the squares that define Boston neighborhoods, all while remaining substantially but not literally true to geography. The map is available on paper ($20, get one today, I just did!) and is a beautiful work of design.

Here’s my immodest proposal: Unmapped Boston should hook up with Boston Blogs to create a cartographic listing of Boston area blogs by square, and not just the squares that have T stops. Sure, there’s lots of geotagging going on and you can find blogs by longitude and latitude, but I think I prefer a neighborhood-centric blog geography. It’s not so specific that it sets off privacy alarms, and it lets neighbor blogs self-identify their location to the area that suits them best.

So don’t forget, list your blog at Boston Blogs and check out Unmapped Boston, and if you like them, maybe encourage them to get together sometime for a coffee. No pressure.

R dropped me a line after reading my post, Next Stop Wonder Where, and included a link a posting on Seth Godin’s blog. Godin is more than a guy with a dashing haircut, he’s a smart marketer, and his recent book, The Dip, (link to the book’s blog, go figure) made a real impression on me. (No pun) Seth and R go way back, I understand. Anyway, here is a chunk of the article, called “Linkbait”

Insiders know what it is, but it’s a new term to many.

Here’s what you do:
Put a picture on your website. Something novel but still recognizable.
Or something really useful.
Then, put lots of links to various websites within the image.
Or, if you want, make it something remarkably honest or confessional or provocative.
Or make it a top 10 or top 41 list.
Then, tell the people you’re linking to about it.

They link back to you because it’s funny or new or makes them seem smart or just feels sharable.

Ok, that’s actually about half of the article, but it’s very succinct and well-written, unlike certain other blogs you might be reading right about now. Besides the basic simple smart and savvy nature of this post, I’m sure it was sent to me because the example cited is a subway-style (Tokyo variant) schematic of “Web Trend” I’ll forgive the omission of the limeline and give these folks credit for both linkiness -making a map that includes dozens of the hottest trends and companies is smart - and also for transit map similitude and artistry - nice use of terrain and line names, although I’m not wild about the the 3-d floaty thing. Best almost pun: YouTube. Click on the image for more info and links to a giant PDF and poster order form.

If you’re listening over there at Strange Maps, this might be for you.

I’ve been doodling with Illustrator lately, and have been making some spurious maps and other odds and ends to sharpen my skills. Fortunately for you, dear readers, there’s only about 3 weeks left on my trial software.

This bogus transit-style map of places in my personal orbit is definitely derivative of the Boston system where it’s more or less located but I also owe gratitude and apology to the fine folks at the Strange Maps blog, who brought to my attention the Kabbalah system map and Mark Ovenden’s Transit Maps of the World book.

Ever seen the bumper sticker that proclaims, “God is my copilot” or maybe the one that says, “Dog is my copilot“? I don’t think you see as many bumper stickers as you used to, but these days I think if a car has one, it’s as likely to have ten. And I definitely see a lot more evidence that dogs are peoples copilots - if not their actual primary drivers - than that their deities are. On the other hand, it might be pretty cool to have Kali as your copilot, with her head out the passenger window, tongue flapping in the breeze as your car blazes a path of destruction across nine lanes of commuter hell.

OK, enough of my road-rage-fueled commuting fantasies. And my apologies to anyone who feels offended on behalf of Kali. In the interest of full disclosure, my car is protected by a traffic safety talisman I purchased at the Golden Temple in Kyoto. At least that’s what they told me it was.

My point, such as it is, is that I had several appointments in different places today, and in most cases enough time in between that I needed to find a place to kill some time, or if possible, get some work done. GPS and web applications both played big roles. In the morning, a trip to the dentist, just a block away, then hot cider (I was scolded - and scaled - for my coffee intake by the hygienist) with C at 1369, just another block along. Then it got tricky with lunch in Framingham, meeting in West Concord, and dinner in Watertown. As it turned out, two Starbucks with wifi were waypoints and workpoints in between.

I no longer bother to ask anybody for directions when setting up a meeting as long as I get an address. I then depend on my car-mounted GPS or Google Maps on a nearby computer or on my Windows Mobile “smart”phone. Maybe my toys or my skills are a bit out of date, but I find that no single one of these devices or methods quite does the trick on its own, and I use a weird combination of all of them to get around.

The GPS can’t be beat for actually getting there.  Suction cup mount, voice directions and live location information.  But the maps in your average GPS are never as up to date as the ones online, and their POIs (that’s GPS lingo for “Points Of Interest”) are even less so.  My smart phone’s google maps implementaiton is fantastic, but it can’t actually tell me where I am.  And none of these devices seems to have a more complicated itinerary in mind than simple “I need to get from here to there.”

What I need is something that can solve this problem:  I need to get from point A to point B in N hours, but it takes much less time to get there, so I also need to find a location  near point B where I can goof off or work productively (usually defined as a cafe or bookstore with free wifi) until closer to when I need to be there.  And I sometimes need to do this several times in a single trip.  And don’t forget to account for parking time and all.  There’s nothing worse than being late when you’ve had lots of extra time to get there.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I want to get there making the fewest left turns possible.