For quite some time I have been wondering how it would look to graph all of the US highways on a timeline, and I finally had an opportunity to do it. I was surprised about some of the patterns that showed up in the data, and this exercise increased my understanding of the history of the US highway system. I've put together a webpage displaying the results:
https://usends.com/history.html
I wanted to see what all of you think before I create public links to it.
At first brush, I'd put the "eras" each on their own separate pages. Having them all together on one page plus the tables makes for an extreme amount of scrolling.
Did Oregon and Washington both kill 99 in 1969? I thought 99 hung on for a bit after California stupidly killed their portion before Oregon and Washington followed suit.
^ Washington's elimination of US 99 was approved at the Spring (June), 1969 AASHTO meeting. Oregon's was a couple years later, at the Annual (December) 1971 meeting.
Quote from: Bickendan on February 03, 2019, 05:09:27 AM
Did Oregon and Washington both kill 99 in 1969? I thought 99 hung on for a bit after California stupidly killed their portion before Oregon and Washington followed suit.
Yes, thanks for pointing that out. For this project I used my own individual route pages as the primary source, but on those pages I dealt with Interstate-related incremental truncations in aggregate. However, on this timeline, I can (and should) be more specific.
Quote from: froggie on February 02, 2019, 09:04:12 PM
At first brush, I'd put the "eras" each on their own separate pages. Having them all together on one page plus the tables makes for an extreme amount of scrolling.
That's true. Or what if I kept all the text on this page, and just provide links to the charts, which would be hosted on Flickr?
^ Still think eras should be separated out onto their own pages.
I love the idea of it. As to the presentation, I like it the way it is, because I primarily use a desktop computer with a somewhat large monitor, so scrolling isn't a big deal. Viewing the page on my phone, it is somewhat cumbersome. Using separate pages would make it easier to use on a small screen and require only a negligible amount of additional effort with a large screen to click the links. I much prefer images embedded rather than linked, because with a large screen you can see them together and easily refer back and forth, while on a small screen, which I don't use as much, I suppose it might be easier to switch between browser tabs to see the image and then the text, without having to scroll. But this case is different, because those charts are so long, so even on a large screen I have to scroll to refer back to the text, so in this case it's probably easier with either type of screen to switch between tabs.
Also, I much prefer a direct link to the image, rather than to the web page where you have to use the weird interface to enlarge and scroll. To me, this link is much better than the view page
https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7842/32020611027_74776e4d97_h.jpg (https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7842/32020611027_74776e4d97_h.jpg)
Thanks to these graphs I've noticed that if no new US routes are comissioned before the end of this year then the 2010s will be the first decade with no new US routes since they came into existence in 1926. The system seems to have stabilized, although someone I know wants to kill it.
There's one addition I think should be added, and that's the ON/NV 140 corridor.
Maybe I'll email ODOT/OTC and see what they think.
My favorite DC ones are 111, 213 and 240.
Quote from: wxfree on February 03, 2019, 03:34:18 PM
To me, this link is much better than the view page
https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7842/32020611027_74776e4d97_h.jpg (https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7842/32020611027_74776e4d97_h.jpg)
Thanks. Did you have to copy the BBC code in order to obtain that URL, or is there an easier way?