I think this is a reference to the National Radio Quiet Zone, which also extends into a good chunk of Virginia. It is indeed an area where you’re guaranteed to lose cell reception, but the data quality issues in West Virginia aren’t limited to this zone by any means. I’ve cleaned up many roads that corresponded to old mining roads or roads predating mountaintop removal. Even the many roads that legitimately exist have poor geometry because most roads follow winding rivers in dense woodlands within narrow hollows – tough for both GPS reception and aerial survey.
TIGER’s data quality issues are generally endemic to specific counties, but for West Virginia they seem to be pretty consistent statewide. I wonder if this is because West Virginia maintains the entire public road network outside incorporated cities, in contrast to most states that rely more heavily on local highway departments, which are typically responsible for sending road network data to TIGER.
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