What are other water utilities doing to fix the "nearby features turning into symbol blobs" problem?
All of our above-ground features are input in the map as their actual location. The problem I'm having is except in extremely close-scale maps, valves (and some other features) overlap and show up as a little blob of symbols. It's impossible to see how many valves exist at each junction. It's really a problem for our field crew, as well as engineers and other people we need to share maps with.
Is there a way to keep the real location data but show the symbols offset along the mainlines for map exhibits? Nothing I've come across really seems to fit the bill.