It seems that search engine superpower and go-to map company Google has had some problems arranging Toronto lately, with the city’s most iconic building and way-finding tool being inappropriately placed in Cabbagetown. Searchers can find the CN Tower listed twice, once in its actual location, and once more with the postal code M4X 1G7.
While no reports have surfaced yet of confused tourists standing at the corner of Wellesley and Parliament, in light of one woman’s recent lawsuit against Google for wrong directions, local residents should keep in mind that it might be a possibility.
Old Cabbagetown BIA Co-ordinator Doug Fisher doesn’t mind all that much. “It’s about time we got some of those attractions here,” he said with a laugh when told about the Tower’s presence in his neighbourhood.
This is not the first time Google Maps has messed up Toronto, or even Wellesley Street for that matter.
For months Google’s view of Toronto inappropriately had Wellesley Street named as Lourdes Lane, the name of a much smaller laneway one block north of the main artery, with the correct naming only being replaced sometime this past week.
Google has also misplaced the Silverthorn neighbourhood in the city’s north end, wrongly attributing the name to another unnamed area, much to the chagrin of the real neighbourhood’s residents.
One possibility is that Google inserted the mistakes as “trap streets” and trap landmarks, a tool used by cartographers to better copyright their materials and safeguard against theft. By inserting small mistakes into their maps, a cartographer can know when a competitor has stolen his or her hard work.
Google and TeleAtlas, the company that provides Google with its mapping information, have corrected other small Toronto mistakes in the past, so regular users can keep a close eye on Toronto to see if any other changes take place to the city’s online effigy.
5 comments
Google always gets it wrong. Try this instead: http://www.openstreetmap.org
Let’s place bets on how long it will take for Google to connect Dufferin St. after the tunnel opens
At least Google has figured out how to deal with Canadian postal codes. They were truncated or absent on Google Maps of Canadian cities for what seemed like ages. Now if they would change the subway icons to something that Torontonians would recognize a subway stops. On the other hand, I see that they have added streetcar stops, which is more than can be said for the TTC’s own map (http://www3.ttc.ca/images/fixedImages/TTCRideGuide_5.pdf).
In Montreal, they still have the Blue line terminating one stop short of Snowdon! Though they seem to correct errors far quicker than TeleAtlas or Navteq (the latter at least has fairly accurate data), this mistake continues even after I’ve reported it twice in the last 6 months!
Even funnier is that through some Google searching, it seems no one even notices besides me!
Anyways, a good alternative is Bing Maps. They have a lot of the navigational features that Google has, birds’ eye views, and even their own street view system as well (US site).
I can assure you of this much: Toronto is not the only city where this sort of gaffe’s happened re: Google Maps. Sometimes, the mistakes are subtler than this…