SPOKANE, Wash --- Washington State Department of Transportation adds some flair to their traffic map with doodles from Microsoft Paint.
The social media team at WSDOT got a little artsy with its traffic notifications and it created quite a bit of attention on social media.
There is not really anything exciting about a plain old map or dry Facebook posts that tell you there is traffic on the highway. WSDOT knows that, so they made their weekend update about events and road construction with some Microsoft Paint doodles.
Some of the doodles are impressive, there is a bagpipe drawn with a mouse and others are more information based like where they highlight the Scottish Highland Games in Spokane.
When you look at the west side, you can see WSDOT got a little more fancy by throwing in some clip art to show drivers where road closures are located. They used clip art for Seafair and even a concert on Saturday at the White River Ampitheater. It looks like it is a lot of work to do this but WSDOT said it is worth it to inform the public.
"It just gives people a sense that we're real people here--we're just like them--we're terrible artists but we try really hard and we just try to put something together that's just going to catch people's eyes and also bring a little life to what generally can be boring information," said WSDOT Social Media Manager, Mike Allende.
This is not the first humorous, informative map they have made. They have been doing this for the last few weekends in July.
WSDOT said they usually post these doodled maps when there are a lot of events going on throughout the state.
It is an entertaining post but WSDOT said at the end of the day its main job is to make sure traffic information is getting out to people so they can plan accordingly.
