"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

On 11 Apr, 02:44, "John Rowland"
wrote:

They've combined it with Multimap.

All in all, they have got rid of a lot of useful functionality and I'm
not
sure why. We are basically left with Multimap, with the Birds Eye views
taken over from WLL, and the rest of WLL has been binned.

Why has it happened? Simple, Multimap was bought by Microsoft last
December.

So they bought out a historically important but subsequently totally
outclassed map resource, and then got rid of their own state-of-the-art one?
Presumably Multimap generated more revenue from its handful of users.

I must admit I predominantly used WLL (or Live Maps as the service
seemed to be renamed) for the Bird's Eye view facility, which is
retained here.

I used it for everything except zooming in on foreign countries, where
Google Earth had better photo resolution.

It had the only map in the world of the new-ish one-way system around Mount
Pleasant Rd N17. AFAIK there is not one commerically available, (although
new satnav maps should have it) and my several attempts to get one from
Haringey Council failed (yes, alright, I know from my five years maintaining
"Transport Plans For The London Area" that trying to get transport
information from any Labour Council is an utter waste of time, but I really
wanted this). Now it's gone. I decided about a week ago to print it out, but
it's too late now.

Incidentally whilst Multimap (and Streetmap) use A-Z style
raster mapping in London, if you look elsewhere you'll see that they
use different mapping to cover other cities such as Leeds - which is I
think actually vector mapping, though it doesn't offer the same ease
of zooming in and out that the old WLL maps did (which also allowed
you to do this with your mouse's scrollwheel if you had such a thing).

It has detailed vector maps showing one way systems for the entire country
except ~ the M25 area. Curses.
They've also ruined the route planning.. they've made it a lot harder to use
or view. And if you ask for St Loys Rd N17 to Crowland Rd N15, you get a
route travelling southward the length of Tottenham High Rd, which is fine,
if you're driving a bus... you can actually see the northward-only arrow on
the raster map alongside your southbound driving route down the contraflow
bus lane.

Lets try Rupert St to Half Moon St... yep, down the contraflow bus lane,
against the visible arrow on the raster map.

Lets try Mackworth St to Morwell St. Crash though the barrier to do a right
turn to Hampstead Road, then forward through the no entry sign into
Tottenham Court Road southbound.

Also, incidentally, the Multimap mapping is proving quite draggable to
me (and it works in map view, aerial view and Bird's Eye view modes).

Yes, you have to click "Interactive Map" first. Thanks. The point of the
non-interactive entry map evades me. What a mess.