Building Roads Virtually & in Real Life (not literally professionally doing it)

[adventurernumber1]

Do any of y'all or have any of y'all in the past, perhaps in your childhood days, built roads before? Not professionally like actually building roads, but making roads with things such as chalk and building roads virtually on sites such as roblox (which I know some users on this site build roads on roblox). In my early childhood days (btw I'm almost 15 now) I would build roads with chalk on my long driveway. I would draw interstates that would go through cities, make interchanges (I could actually figure out how to draw the chalk right to make something like an interchange that would be complex to do with chalk due to it being 3D), and more. In my childhood days I would also build roads using toy tracks. Sounds very odd but my little brother always liked to play with trains on toy tracks and I found a way to bond with him doing it. The tracks would just be roads basically in my imagination, and I would find Lincoln-logs to tape paper to which said exits; basically making BGS. And the toy tracks would have a northbound and a southbound track (or eastbound & westbound). That's another way I could make roads while bonding with my brother. Nowadays I build roads a lot on roblox (and do know some people on this site that do as well), and I can make more realistic roads than ever. So have any of y'all had any similar experiences?

[roadman65]

I would imagine we all here have done so in one form or another in our lives.  Yes, I used to chalk up my driveway with lane striping and stuff.  I even once took the old fold out paper maps and drew roads with pen or pencil where I think a road should go at times and create some of my own roads.

With the computers now we can (and have) either draw our own maps and even make our own signs.

[Scott5114]

I discovered that masking tape was almost exactly double the width of a Hot Wheels car, so it made an excellent road material. I made signs out of cardboard and toothpicks.

[Big John]

As a child, I was using the sandbox to build road systems.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I myself built a few feet of gravel road in real life a couple years ago. A machine was used for construction. Try to top that .

[jeffandnicole]

If you go in my parent's basement, you will still find the masking tape outlines of some of the roads I built down there.  I would kneel on a skateboard and race around.

[spooky]

My brother and I had a few different road play sets - they came in a vinyl box like a small suitcase that would fold out and have roads, bridges, etc. We had a TON of matchbox cars and hot wheels.

When my mom would replace window shades, she would give us the old ones to draw roads on with a magic marker. It was great because you could roll it out to play with and then roll it back up to store.

[DaBigE]

My brother and I had a few different road play sets - they came in a vinyl box like a small suitcase that would fold out and have roads, bridges, etc. We had a TON of matchbox cars and hot wheels.

Had those as well, in addition to a fair amount of Majorette city Majokits (can still find them fairly reasonably on eBay).

FWIW, I found 4 LEGO studs was a good width when playing with Matchbox cars and LEGO. At one point, my dad had acquired a surplus plotter role from work (I think it was obsolete when they got a new sized plotter). I used to draw a lot of roads on there. IIRC, my lanes were 1" wide. Used gray and orange markers to "paint" the lines.

As a child, I was using the sandbox to build road systems.

Did plenty of that as well. Very few sandcastles for me.

When I started to ride a bike, the driveway and sidewalk got chalked into roadways. At one point, I remember having turned an old box into a small Type I barricade. I always asked for some of the signs and the traffic light (that was the Holy Grail for me as a kid...I believe they were PowerWheels accessories?), but sadly never got them.

[doorknob60]

Hot wheels tracks with road signs printed from a clip art of signs I had on my computer, taped to the track There were times you could hardly walk in my room because I had roads everywhere, including on furniture, etc. Then around the SimCity 4 came out and I stopped doing that (though I did have 3000 and 2000 before that, and Streets of SimCity).

[US81]

Another sandbox builder here.

I remember getting very frustrated that, while I could make great mountains and valleys, I could not manipulate the sand well-enough to create a true bridge, The best I could manage to do was take a long-ish twig, lay it in the sand and layer just enough sand over it in the right spot to make an "overpass."

[Arkansastravelguy]

Another sandbox builder here.

I remember getting very frustrated that, while I could make great mountains and valleys, I could not manipulate the sand well-enough to create a true bridge, The best I could manage to do was take a long-ish twig, lay it in the sand and layer just enough sand over it in the right spot to make an "overpass."

Popsicle sticks made great bridges. I even went as far as making truss bridges using Elmer's glue

[KG909]

When I was 5 I would make them in my backyard with dirt. I also would draw them in notebooks, actually still do. Around 8-13 I made them in Roblox. I'm 15 btw

[adventurernumber1]

When I was 5 I would make them in my backyard with dirt. I also would draw them in notebooks, actually still do. Around 8-13 I made them in Roblox. I'm 15 btw

Cool! I actually would draw them in notebooks sometimes too! And nice to know another roblox road builder. 

[KG909]

When I was 5 I would make them in my backyard with dirt. I also would draw them in notebooks, actually still do. Around 8-13 I made them in Roblox. I'm 15 btw

Cool! I actually would draw them in notebooks sometimes too! And nice to know another roblox road builder. 

Though I haven't played Roblox in a while because it changed so much for the worse imho

[JakeFromNewEngland]

I build roads on Roblox. Even though the site has a pretty terrible community IMO, it's engine is great for creating roads and fictional cities. When I was younger, I would draw roads on paper. Most of the time I would draw fictional states and make fictional cities inside of those states. I also remember drawing maps of these fictional states which I have around somewhere. I also drew roads in chalk on my driveway too. They used to stretch every inch of my driveway. I used to have my neighbors come over and we would take my little matchbox cars and drive around the roads. 

[adventurernumber1]

I build roads on Roblox. Even though the site has a pretty terrible community IMO, it's engine is great for creating roads and fictional cities. When I was younger, I would draw roads on paper. Most of the time I would draw fictional states and make fictional cities inside of those states. I also remember drawing maps of these fictional states which I have around somewhere. I also drew roads in chalk on my driveway too. They used to stretch every inch of my driveway. I used to have my neighbors come over and we would take my little matchbox cars and drive around the roads. 

Yeah. When I chalked up roads on my driveway my brother would always drive his toy cars on them. I had to constantly remind him to stay in the right side of the road, but heh, he has to learn someday    but that was five years ago, and due to the fact that he has grown out of that, and the fact that my dad thinks drawing with chalk and making toy-track-roads is childish, those days are over. But back in the day, oh the nostalgia. My relatives have taken pictures of it before so I'll see if I can find some pictures and show y'all someday.

And when I drew roads in notebooks when I was young, I would look at maps and draw what I thought a road might look like that I haven't been on before. I would draw how many lanes each way, if it was concrete or asphalt (Drew tiny dots if it was concrete), the speed limits, and when I got to exits on a map Id draw what I thought the BGS looked like and the control cities on them, then Id draw the chains/businesses I thought would be on the exit, the tall signs visible from the interstate. I still have many of those notebooks today and I look through them quite often. 

[freebrickproductions]

And when I drew roads in notebooks when I was young, I would look at maps and draw what I thought a road might look like that I haven't been on before. I would draw how many lanes each way, if it was concrete or asphalt (Drew tiny dots if it was concrete), the speed limits, and when I got to exits on a map Id draw what I thought the BGS looked like and the control cities on them, then Id draw the chains/businesses I thought would be on the exit, the tall signs visible from the interstate. I still have many of those notebooks today and I look through them quite often. 

How accurate were they?

I've also drawn roads on paper and I used to make them out of chalk on the driveway and frontwalk as well. I still play Sim City 4 on occasion too, but I've slowed down a lot when I accidentally deleted my save files. I even had a city with over 10,000 or 100,000 people before I did that.

[adventurernumber1]

How accurate were they?

A couple of years after I did that a lot I found our about Google Street View so then I'd see what all those interstates and roads actually looked like. A lot of the BGS were accurate since when looking at maps I can easily figure out what control cities would be on a given BGS, and of course I know what road is on the exit, so the BGS were generally accurate, but having little knowledge about road-side chains back then, the chains w/ tall signs on exits weren't so accurate LOL. I was used to the south thinking chains like Cracker Barrel, Krystal, Hardee's etc. that are primarily in the south would be on many exits ANYWHERE in the US. Clearly I got a lot wrong. And of course there were chains in different parts of the country I never even knew about. Same with lane configurations. At the time I had little knowledge of the rest of the country, and I was used to Atlanta having up to 8 or 9 lanes each way, lol, so when I got to a city with a population equivilant to Atlanta's such as Kansas City, I would draw 10 lanes each way thinking it was normal. 

[JakeFromNewEngland]

How accurate were they?

A couple of years after I did that a lot I found our about Google Street View so then I'd see what all those interstates and roads actually looked like. A lot of the BGS were accurate since when looking at maps I can easily figure out what control cities would be on a given BGS, and of course I know what road is on the exit, so the BGS were generally accurate, but having little knowledge about road-side chains back then, the chains w/ tall signs on exits weren't so accurate LOL. I was used to the south thinking chains like Cracker Barrel, Krystal, Hardee's etc. that are primarily in the south would be on many exits ANYWHERE in the US. Clearly I got a lot wrong. And of course there were chains in different parts of the country I never even knew about. Same with lane configurations. At the time I had little knowledge of the rest of the country, and I was used to Atlanta having up to 8 or 9 lanes each way, lol, so when I got to a city with a population equivilant to Atlanta's such as Kansas City, I would draw 10 lanes each way thinking it was normal. 

I remember doing a similar thing. I would make my roads all based around the roads I had traveled on within New England. Also, the most common chains seen on my maps were Dunkin Donuts (obviously  ), Subway, and McDonalds since those are common in my part of the country.