Whoa! I better ease up on bashing the NC DOT lest we end up with a Georgia DOT response. Down Peachtree way — doesn’t everything in Georgia include a peach reference? — the mapmakers at DOT have decided the state map is too “cluttered” with small towns. The straight forward solution: remove them. More:
The state map makers decided they had too many communities – they call them place-holders – squeezed into tiny little print.
“The map was too cluttered. We went ahead and took out all the place-holders that were under 2,500 people as defined by the census,” explained Karlene Barron with the Georgia DOT.
Dennis Holt counted more than 300 communities gone. The actual number is 515.
“Floyd County, which is where Rome is, lost 9 out of 11 – so the only thing left in Floyd County is Rome and Cave Spring,” says Holt.
“There has to be a cut-off,” said Barron.
“How are you gonna find anything? Many counties in south Georgia have been left virtually blank except for the county seat,” says Holt.
That sounds like much, much too high a bar. Even a town of 2,500 can be pretty significant for travel purposes.
Maybe the Georgia DOT is getting ready to stop spending money in those towns, too. Nah, that would mean that the department’s headcount is too “cluttered” as well, and we all know that cannot possibly be true.
