New ORV Plan Ideas

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
I love the old 24k USGS topo's, they are what got me interested in maps when I was just a kid. But they really don't reflect the current reality in many cases. For example, Bulldozed Road should be familiar to most people, it is on all my maps, it's on OpenStreetMap and even on the new USGS National Map. It shows on the aerials back to the 1980's, but it's not on the old 24k topo map.

https://mobile.boydsmaps.com/#16.00/39.734361/-74.649052/pines1999/0.00/0.00

Devious-Mount Road is another well-known road on current maps like my topo's, OpenStreetMap and the USGS National Map. But it's not on the old 24k Topo's either.

https://mobile.boydsmaps.com/#16.00/39.737909/-74.632272/pines1999/0.00/0.00

These are just a couple examples, there are plenty of others.
Thats because as you said they haven;t been revised since the 70's.Such ashame.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NJCoastal

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Some are even older than that!

Screen Shot 2021-10-23 at 8.04.32 PM.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: NJCoastal

Pan

Explorer
Jul 4, 2011
554
246
Arizona
Those big old topo maps were what i used when hiking and backpacking in the Pines in the 60s and 70s. I coated them to make them water resistant, but that also made them even harder to fold up. That and an Esso or Mobilgas road map and a compass was all i had. Chatsworth, Woodmansie, Oswego Lake, Whiting, Atsion, Jenkins, Indian Mills, familiar names to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NJCoastal

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
I did two years work for the Earth Science Corps volunteer updating the Dividing Creek Topo. I walked every street in Laurel Lake deleteing houses and trailers gone and adding new ones.It took two years to finish the updating.Then they wrote me a letter back Good Job! and said they were going to urbanize laurel Lake and turn it pink.This highly PO'ed me.I do not live in an urban jungle like Millville or Vineland.I live in a really big campground that just happens to have a few crack heads living in abandoned trailers and turkeys running the streets.Someone even hits a deer walking through the campground once in awhile.We are not urban.Then they ended up never updating the thing anyway unless you call those new Topo/Aerial hybrids maps.Quite the ugliest thing I"ve ever seen. Yes their very outdated (the old topos) but I still love em.I remember when I first found them at age 14 in the Millville Library NJ Room.They would not let you take out reference material so I copied them on the machine for a dime a copy which left them black and white and hit the woods with them,even then I soon realized the roads were out of date,some already gone (many more since then) and many new ones.I sometimes walk foot trails with my grandson and when I tell him I used to drive them he is amazed.he walked up to a tree that he thought was quite old in the road about the size of my leg and said how old is this tree.I told him older then you but younger then me:) It was probably about 30 because thats how long that road has been shut down by the nature conservancy.
 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Then they ended up never updating the thing anyway unless you call those new Topo/Aerial hybrids maps.Quite the ugliest thing I"ve ever seen.

Topo+aerials is a just one of the options, they also have a plain topo map. These were really horrible when they introduced them, there were very few features at all. But they've improved a lot recently here in the Pines, they now have green forest shading (NJDEP landcover data?) and buildings (Microsoft?). The biggest problem now is mostly cosmetic IMO, they seem to have bought into the same faded low-contrast style that Google favors.

https://boydsmaps.com/#15.00/39.332437/-75.019714/usgsTopo/0.00/0.00

https://boydsmaps.com/#15.00/39.332437/-75.019714/pines1999/0.00/0.00

laurel.jpg


And look at the buildings, they are almost invisible! The major highways look thinner than little neighborhood streets too. But the data seems to be there and this is just a simple issue of how it's being presented. The good news is that they are obviously still working on the topo's and improving them, hopefully they will look better in the future.

BTW - no pink shading, but the green area has gotten a lot smaller! :D
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Pan and NJCoastal

enormiss

Explorer
Aug 18, 2015
574
366
Atco NJ
Wasn't it discussed the 1st time they tried the MAP that they couldn't use federal fuel tax for maintenance and prohibit legal vehicle access?
 
  • Like
Reactions: NJCoastal

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,603
8,181
The problem with signs is they will be like the plastic posts blocking all the roads. We will constantly see new signs showing up until all the roads are closed. Give them an inch and they take a mile.
 

Pan

Explorer
Jul 4, 2011
554
246
Arizona
"prohibit legal vehicle access?"


When i used to haunt the NJ Pine Barrens, from the late 1960's thru the 70's and 80's and early to mid 90's, and then occasionally into the early 2000's and even a couple of times since, there was pretty much nobody at all driving on those roads except me in my VW and Subaru. No off road vehicles at all. Nobody. The vast woods were all mine. I could hike and camp for days on end without seeing a soul, sometimes an occasional Piney who was never unfriendly to me, except one man who i inadvertently camped practically in his back yard. I had walked down a trail thinking i was far away from everything but unbeknownst to me the trail came right up to his house (not nearly as bad as what I did once in Fahnestock State Park in NY, tho!) Now there are off road vehicles out here in the desert too, kicking up dust.
 

Attachments

  • Driving through the NJPB in my '75 Subaru, May 1975.jpg
    Driving through the NJPB in my '75 Subaru, May 1975.jpg
    776.5 KB · Views: 81
  • njpb, road to jenkins off rt. 72 by ocean and burlington cty. line, 22sep1971.jpg
    njpb, road to jenkins off rt. 72 by ocean and burlington cty. line, 22sep1971.jpg
    819.6 KB · Views: 85
Top