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Map Key

8 Jan 2014
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Hi,

The map key is an essential part of any map. While some things may seem obvious to most people, everything should be available in the key somewhere. Perhaps including an expand button to expand the key to cover details of everything that is marked on the map. For example, what do dashed lines mean?

Having said that, I love the style of the map, and the fonts used.

Thanks, Dom

Comments

Fri 20 Mar 2015, 15:15

I agree with Dom, a key is essential. I can probably guess what the symbols mean, but assumptions can lead to unfortunate consequences.

Not sure about Dom's expand suggestion. OpenStreetMap has an optional sidebar which works well for me.

On the whole the cycle.travel site is superb.

Peter

Thu 23 Apr 2015, 11:55

I've just added all the currently used icons into the key.

Dotted/dashed lines should be shown in the key already, but if you're using an older version of Firefox they might not show up correctly - newer Firefoxes, Chrome, Safari and even IE should all show the dots/dashes in the key.

Let me know if there's anything I've missed!

Sat 25 Nov 2023, 17:48

What do the yellow roads indicate? They are not shown in the key.

Sun 26 Nov 2023, 10:13
What do the yellow roads indicate? They are not shown in the key.

Larry, assuming that you are referring to the CT map (and not one of the variations) the yellow roads show up on my screen as "through" roads. 

You can always plot a quick route to include a section of the road you are curious about, create a via point on it, then click on the viapoint for more information. It's a useful way to identify cycling routes, as an example.

You can also click on any point and see if Streetview footage is available - this, to  my mind, gives a far better indication of a road than any label on a map.

If you need more information perhaps include a link to a particular route/road - CT covers a pretty wide slice of the world!

If using a map different to the standard CT, then I'd suggest saving the route and switching back to CT to check the road information. You can continue to switch over and back. 

Sun 26 Nov 2023, 22:41

The colours are slightly different on the map for North America, to reflect the different road network and also regional variations in the OpenStreetMap source data we use.

Orange is a main road (usually a US route or a major state road), yellow is a secondary road (often a quieter state road). The green ‘trunk road’ and pale yellow ‘through road’ categories aren’t used.

A faint grey dashed line is an ‘unsurveyed road’, which means the data isn’t conclusive about whether this is a rideable road or not.

I’ll update the key to include these!