Online maps slow to catch up with Big Dig changes
Some sites ignore or bypass project
Two years after the Big Dig's tunnels opened, online directions for getting around Boston are slow to catch up, and some even avoid the mega-road project, according to a Globe survey of Internet map sites.
The situation appears better than it did two years ago, when fresh changes at the Big Dig resulted in online directions that sent motorists to nonexistent exits and to demolished ramps. But there are still major problems.
On the City of Boston's online directions to City Hall, for example, a simple map shows the long-gone elevated expressway that the Big Dig replaced. No exit numbers or directions are included.
Tele Atlas, the Lebanon, N.H., firm that maps the Big Dig and feeds the data to clients including MapQuest, Google Maps, and
Some commercial online maps often bypass the project.
On Google Maps, the directions from Big Dig headquarters at 180 Kneeland St. to Big Dig contractor Modern
A route on Yahoo! Maps from the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy to the Paul Revere House in the North End sends drivers off I-93 north before the tunnel to take surface roads to the North End.
Another Yahoo! Maps route from Medford to the Paul Revere House puts drivers on surface roads all the way. Type in the towns without a specific address, however, and the routes include the Big Dig.
Officials with Yahoo! and MapQuest said they update their information as soon as possible and do not purposefully avoid the Big Dig to keep bad information off their sites.
Diana Vincent, a spokeswoman for Yahoo!, said the company relies on data from the nation's two main mapping providers, NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas. ''You'd have to ask them directly for information on this," she said.
Officials at Tele Atlas say they continue to update their maps every 90 days in Boston and make no attempt to avoid the tunnels during the Big Dig's $14.6 billion construction.
''I can say with certainty that we're not saying to avoid the Big Dig," said Dan Adams, Tele Atlas' vice president for data sourcing. ''But what the application providers decide to do in their business is really the key."
''Compared to the rest of the country," he added, ''Boston is complicated."
Officials from Google Maps said their maps are updated on average every 18 months. Officials did not respond to questions asking if they purposefully avoided sending drivers through the project.
Nationwide, about one in 50 computer-generated directions goes wayward, according to Doug Richardson, the executive director for the Association of American Geographers.
The problem could be the way online maps are made, assigning latitude-longitude coordinates to an address to find a destination. The process, called geocoding, relies heavily on satellite-based Global Positioning Systems, which tend to lose their signal deep inside the Big Dig's tunnels.
Massachusetts Turnpike Authority spokeswoman Mariellen Burns said the Big Dig is proactive about updating changes to the project, and that when an online misdirection is brought to their attention, they call the cartographers.
''There are just so many different outlets that people can use, which is great," she said, ''but it also creates a bit of a challenge."
As for the City of Boston's map, Raj Pareek, manager of electronic government services, said the error slipped through the cyber cracks and the map will soon be updated.
Pareek said the lack of driving directions was purposeful, based on a philosophy that no information was better than bad information.
''We just thought, 'Let's not confuse people,' " he said.
Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
