For as long as I can remember, I've loved looking at maps, road atlases, etc. And ever since I've been little, I've enjoyed making my own, completely fake maps. To most people they just think I've drawn a bunch of random lines on a page, but to this day I still love to draw fake maps. I've even gone back and given every single line various made up names. I've probably drawn hundreds, maybe even thousands, and I keep them all in various binders and things.
Am I completely weird or what?
I drew so many when I was a kid, but most were lost/thrown away. Many of mine were spoofs of existing cities. In my 1986 Gousha road atlas still lies a spoof of Omaha!
Yeah, I should say that most of my maps were heavily inspired by real places. I've drawn many that are based off the San Fernando Valley, for example, and then a few that are based on mountain towns that have twisty roads that don't adhere to any sort of grid pattern or anything.
I saved them all because it's weird looking back and seeing how terrible some of the ones that I drew are back when I was five or six years old.
It was easier for me to draw completely fictitious maps when I was younger. The older I got, the more I ended up mirroring existing places. I still have one notebook from high school in storage and a few college notebooks loaded with maps in the back hanging around too.
I don't think I ever actually drew a map of it, but I created a fictitious city when I was little that I had the major streets and a freeway set out in my mind. I even imagined where the freeway exits were and what the signs looked like.
Yeah I've drawn fictitious maps many times back in high school and before but now the only ones I draw when I have time are a VA version of the Myrtle Beach, SC area on a fictitious island east of the Eastern Shore and then a spoof of my home county Prince George, VA with the population growing similar to that of Loudoun County, VA
I drew a few in my time.
My largest was a pair of fictitious states within a 350 mile square located in an area centered by real Oklahoma and hence getting parts of Texas, Kansas, and, possibly, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.
The one state, Squarius (and yes I know it's a lame name!), was the upper quadrant of the square. (i.e. 175x175 miles) It had a main tollway running diagonally across the state with a single long extension running in the south and southeast of the state like the Pennsy Turnpike. The rest of the interstates and freeways were free highways. The capital was a city call Ellis which was a little north and east of dead center in the state. And, yes, the state highway symbol was a boring square. I even copied a section of Columbia county Pennsylvania in there with my hometown in the southeast corner of the state. That's near the real Ozarks so the topography wasn't too far off.
The other state, Lamus, which occupied the other three quarters of the square, was my main focus. It's capital way eponymous. It had an extensive toll system inspired by real-life Oklahoma and Kentucky. Only a minority of the interstate mileage in the state was free highway. The Lamus Toll System was privately owned and was a pioneer in using automated machines to take prepaid card, bills as well as coins for it's ticket system exits. Now, this was back in the 70s so I was WAY ahead of the trends as all this has come to pass along with Electronic Tolling which no one imagined back then. The LTS service plazas also had motels. The Lamus state highway symbol is the state shape. (I'll have to make some mockups to show it properly.) The state had some 4 digit highway numbers.
The interstate and US systems in this alternate US were the reverse of our numbering systems with the US highways being low in the southwest and the Interstate low in the northeast. East west interstates 82, 84, 86 and 88 crossed E-W and 39 and 41 went north south. I-41 was carried on the original Lamus Turnpike.
Now, I twice attempted to make this map and only really got the freeways defined. The first map is long gone and I'm pretty sure the second is, too.
I also remembered one I drew for Abescon, NJ. Abescon is a real place name in the Atlantic City area, but in mine it became the resort city's name.
Other then that, I mainly drew exits.
Just ask every notebook I've had since Middle School. You could tell how boring the class was based on how many interchanges and made up towns were sketched in the margins. Now in the workplace I occasionally find my self in meetings doing the same thing.
I also recall creating a fake island country at some point that I could populate with towns and roads. The catch with that one was deciding on a brief geologic history that would explain the shape of the island and the land features it's civilization would have to contend with. It was something about an extinct volcano and an ice age that made this great natural harbor.
If I had a nickel for all the maps I've been drawing, I'd.....have a lot of nickels. Seriously though, I've been drawing maps since about 10, and I still do. This time around, I plan on using them in SimCity 4.
Quote from: kj3400 on October 29, 2010, 10:57:15 AM
If I had a nickel for all the maps I've been drawing,
If you go by a nickel per square foot, I'd probably have about $100 worth of accumulated maps by now in various places.
Used to draw completely fictitious maps, mostly back during high school. It's slowly died down over the years, to where over the past 5 or so years, I haven't done it at all, preferring instead to concentrate on GIS mapping utilizing existing maps as a baseline.
I make fictitious maps anytime I have free time to do so. However unlike a lot of other people who detail the road when drawing things like interchanges, I just draw lines. Later on I can post photos of what I've done recently.
All 11,135 miles of Interstate 316 on the planet Xngue:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg100.imageshack.us%2Fimg100%2F5103%2Fdscn7918l.jpg&hash=158078da39de53a0fe318acc7a575203dd028c6e)
An old scan of the first page:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg534.imageshack.us%2Fimg534%2F7145%2F316start.jpg&hash=caf3d059370bb3989d5ce1ecd80eadaa85de7248)
Complicated interchange at mile 1090:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg441.imageshack.us%2Fimg441%2F7056%2F316laterstill.jpg&hash=1ad81bab7a0c65834990bf02160b953f4198a170)
This whole "project" took me over five years.
Cookie if you can guess what brand of maps most influenced my style. ;-)
Hagstrom?
Quote from: PennDOTFan on October 29, 2010, 08:29:01 PM
I make fictitious maps anytime I have free time to do so. However unlike a lot of other people who detail the road when drawing things like interchanges, I just draw lines. Later on I can post photos of what I've done recently.
I know more than one person who does it that way. You're not alone.
I don't use color, I just use pencil and pen. I would like to use color when I draw but I find that I redo things so often that it's pretty much impossible to work with anything that can't be quickly erased.
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on October 29, 2010, 09:55:23 PM
Hagstrom?
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg838.imageshack.us%2Fimg838%2F9675%2Fcookie1.gif&hash=73278487be3d37637930c5485a2e64812f87f765)
I draw roads too.
I did that a lot when I was a kid. Didn't save any of them, though.
Guilty. :D Got through class by reading ahead in the assigned novels, as well as drawing maps on the covers we made for our textbooks. This was in middle school.
On some, the roads were just drawn as lines, whereas others had the roads spec'd out. My maps were generally fictional rural areas with small towns, lakes, resorts and parks. Fun times.
I still doodle all the time. When there was time to play SimCity, I would maintain a map of the area. Here's a PDF of a map several revs back: http://www.kurumi.com/roads/simcity/maps/tc1989.pdf
I still do from time to time...
Nah not weird at all. This is "Tyson, TX"
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flh6.ggpht.com%2F_WYYeXvkUoUE%2FTJLenBO7ebI%2FAAAAAAAAF_U%2FVINqcE9t2pA%2Fs800%2FSANY0162.JPG&hash=d9111453992d45459fd3ae2f5b9119af41fe7414)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flh4.ggpht.com%2F_WYYeXvkUoUE%2FTJLen2ImCgI%2FAAAAAAAAF_Y%2FAshZHZsqgsg%2Fs800%2FSANY0163.JPG&hash=56c25b8cbad3f5b5bb7605d78726148b841450cd)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flh5.ggpht.com%2F_WYYeXvkUoUE%2FTJLe3T6pghI%2FAAAAAAAAGBM%2Fk72H3Cqmw_w%2Fs800%2FSANY0207.JPG&hash=7ba12fbd41cbe418fd767619d1851728e4b904cc)
BigMatt
Quote from: BigMatt on October 30, 2010, 09:16:54 PM
Nah not weird at all. This is "Tyson, TX"
[snip]
BigMatt
Damn, that looks really good! At least compared to the kind of things I usually draw.
I still doodle all the time. Some of my drawings have been quite elaborate over the years - I wish I'd saved some of them.
I remember in school if I was bored, imagining that the ceiling tiles were city blocks and the "blocks" with lights were parks. If there was a track for a classroom divider, I'd imagine it was the railroad tracks.
I started college pursuing civil engineering so that I could lay out neighborhoods or even whole cities for real. I wound up getting a degree in planning, and all my work (and post-grad studies) has been in GIS.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on October 29, 2010, 10:20:57 AM
Just ask every notebook I've had since Middle School. You could tell how boring the class was based on how many interchanges and made up towns were sketched in the margins. Now in the workplace I occasionally find my self in meetings doing the same thing.
Same here. It will be interesting if some of my hypothetical interchange doodles at work ever get made public in response to a FOIA request, or if I have to turn them over to opposing counsel in pretrial discovery. At the very least, it will be a distraction from trying to decipher my awful handwriting.
Some of you might've seen this before, but here's one of a couple of variations of the Pelham Interchange:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg593.imageshack.us%2Fimg593%2F5194%2Fpelhaminterchangevariat.jpg&hash=b039de94e0675be791f6f4a7e1d7553c2778fcd9) (http://img593.imageshack.us/i/pelhaminterchangevariat.jpg/)
As you see, it's unfinished. It combines the New England Thruway, the formerly proposed extension of the Sheridan Expressway, the formerly proposed City Line and Bronx-Mahopac Expressways, Boston Post Road, and the terminus of the IRT Dyre Avenue Line. No connecting ramps to US 1 or the Baychester Avenue Station, of course.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi374.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Foo184%2Fkj3400%2FCommonwealth%2520of%2520Paradise%2Fupdate%252010b%2Fi1and10.jpg&hash=42de76c0e6f5582e018cab454511d01ebd63d27f)
One I made last year, there's plenty more where that one came from....just need a scanner :-D.
As I've mentioned on another board, FDOT wants to widen I-75 northeast of Tampa, and one of the proposals involves redesigning the interchange with US 98/SR 50(Exit 301) in Ridge Manor West. They have their designs, and the neighborhood NIMBYists have their "alternatives," but I say it should be like this;
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg574.imageshack.us%2Fimg574%2F9368%2Fproposedi75us98fl50reon.jpg&hash=048881519fad03518de1ad88e63ebc6c573eb8c7) (http://img574.imageshack.us/i/proposedi75us98fl50reon.jpg/)
This way, there's no truck traffic on US 98 blocking those short left-turn lanes at the interchange itself.
I've also got some ideas on how Exit 309(Sumter CR's 476B and 673) should be rebuilt, which is similar to how I thin Exit 293(Pasco CR 41) should be rebuilt.
When anyone draws their own maps the one thing they all have in common is they always contain massive interchanges with tangles of ramps and direct connectors. My designs are no exception. This one is of a real location but the interchange has been heavily improved from what actually exists :colorful:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sabre-roads.org.uk%2Fgallery%2Falbums%2Fuserpics%2F10163%2Fm1notts.jpg&hash=cf993683d941c0a399bcf899736a912a7028c814)
I enjoy drawing fictional road signs in my imaginary country of Delstein. It has a system of interstates and freeways designed to get its citizens around as quickly as possible. In other words, you could call me a transportation geek.
I'm bored, I'll go draw some then scan them onto my computer..
Let's try a 6-8 level.. I don't even know if that's possible!!
BigMatt
Quote from: BigMatt on December 25, 2010, 02:10:45 AM
I'm bored, I'll go draw some then scan them onto my computer..
Let's try a 6-8 level.. I don't even know if that's possible!!
BigMatt
A perfect stack interchange between three freeways would be 9 levels.
Quote from: TruveloWhen anyone draws their own maps the one thing they all have in common is they always contain massive interchanges with tangles of ramps and direct connectors.
A lot of times, yes. But I don't think this is the case with my new version of Exit 301 on I-75. All you've got is a standard diamond interchange with the west-to-southbound access replaced by a single flyover, and some connecting ramps. The same thing already exists at Bruce B. Downs Highway, but the connecting ramps to that flyover are all wrong.
Might do better with a SPUI than with a single flyover at I-75/US 98. For one, you'd only have one signal instead of two along US 98.
Absolutely, yes! (In response to the original question.) I sometimes like to envision how the place would look in real life and draw up a little history about it.
I'm doin one right now, I need some help on what type of interchange I should draw..
BigMatt
Quote from: froggie on December 25, 2010, 02:07:20 PM
Might do better with a SPUI than with a single flyover at I-75/US 98. For one, you'd only have one signal instead of two along US 98.
True, but you'd still need to extend the left-turn lanes in the divider. The only problem with that is that you'd interfere with some nearby intersections.
FDOT's existing plans include leading the flyovers from the median either west-to-south, or north-to-west.
Quote from: BigMatt on December 25, 2010, 03:51:59 PM
I'm doin one right now, I need some help on what type of interchange I should draw..
BigMatt
Use your illusion II
I'll have to scan a few of these pages, but I have a few of my own sketch books where I have drawn things from complex interchanges, to little towns, to even my own road sign creations. Most of my interchange ideas come from exsisting ones, but I like to add my own touches. For example, I just drew a copy of I-790 in Utica, NY, except I changed the Utica streets a little bit.
8 level stack.
I made a normal freeway, added HOV lanes on the inside of the normal freeway lanes, then made a stack for the normal lanes, then a stack for the HOV lanes. And the frontage roads have a intersection controlled by a stoplight.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flh5.ggpht.com%2F_WYYeXvkUoUE%2FTRkPJ70M5KI%2FAAAAAAAAGI4%2FFaaavuTtfXM%2Fs800%2FSANY0097.JPG&hash=5b8a36cf5ff6531c8431a1cb5f9ce805ed010346)
BigMatt
Quote from: BigMatt on December 27, 2010, 05:15:15 PM
intersection controlled by a stoplight.
I was with you until that.
Lemme change that to "intersection uncontrolled, also named the "death trap". There is also no speed limit on the frontage road, the rules of the frontage road is 'every man for himself"..
Better?
BigMatt
or just grade-separate the frontage roads without intersecting. Amply sign the approach so that if someone wanted to change directions, they'd know to get on the freeway.
I'm just doing that cause that's what they did on the High Five interchange, and I like that better..
BigMatt
Hey BigMatt, I dare you to make a 16 stack interchange. :P
Aghh, I'll try that tonight before I go to bed.. That's gonna suck.. Better get more colored pencils out.....
It turned into a 19 level stack.... No frontage roads this time...
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flh3.ggpht.com%2F_WYYeXvkUoUE%2FTRls8IAZmYI%2FAAAAAAAAGJg%2FI2U8zwE_nG8%2Fs800%2FSANY0114.JPG&hash=768c9c82795049546826cfa16819038b6e5d5f5d)
BigMatt
I too draw entirely fictional roads in my spare time - I created a country called Brunswick where I tried to mix my favourite elements from numerous countries' road systems.
I still doodle it these days, it used to have a website but currently it's offline pending me replacing it. The neighbouring fictional country, Arransia, can be found here though: http://arransia.speedlimit.org.uk/ (http://arransia.speedlimit.org.uk/)
It began as an excuse to design road signs, and spiralled into what could well be a novel. I really should put it all back together and online soon...
When I was in grade school, I used to draw fictional maps on the inside covers of my notebooks. I even had a couple of kids PAY ME to draw ones on their notebooks. How nerdy is that?
I guess you could say I dabble in this:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsphotos.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fphotos-ak-sf2p%2Fv14%2F140%2F8%2F162200124%2Fn162200124_30000894_6157.jpg&hash=39297938877973da89378901cce94509f2e7e4bb)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsphotos.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fphotos-ak-ash1%2Fv39%2F140%2F8%2F162200124%2Fn162200124_30035954_3034.jpg&hash=b0e4c03a8eb8555a53d561e3165cfaac78b69ac3)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsphotos.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ak-snc1%2Fhs208.snc1%2F7524_521188663203_162200124_30456187_3622620_n.jpg&hash=eafaafb5dfb611176b64648c8a886c3095ce0d91)
Quote from: rte66man on January 11, 2011, 10:08:38 AM
When I was in grade school, I used to draw fictional maps on the inside covers of my notebooks. I even had a couple of kids PAY ME to draw ones on their notebooks. How nerdy is that?
Has anyone ever drawn their own highways on old road atlases? I did that a lot with some old Rand McNally atlases, back when they had lots of broken lines where the interstates were planned to be built!
Quote from: Henry on January 25, 2011, 12:29:22 PM
Has anyone ever drawn their own highways on old road atlases? I did that a lot with some old Rand McNally atlases, back when they had lots of broken lines where the interstates were planned to be built!
Yup. Used to do that all the time.
...which I now regret having done, because what could have been some nice old maps were scribbled all over and abused to the point of falling apart. :no:
I can't remember whether I used to draw them on paper or not, but I used to carve them into the tops of my desks at Woodlawn High School in Baton Rouge. They were old desks to begin with, but I made them look a lot worse by the time I was done with them.
By comparing notes, a couple teachers figured out who was doing it, called me into a room and shouted at me for a while. I never did it again and hadn't thought about it in decades until I saw this topic title.
Quote from: Henry on January 25, 2011, 12:29:22 PM
Has anyone ever drawn their own highways on old road atlases? I did that a lot with some old Rand McNally atlases, back when they had lots of broken lines where the interstates were planned to be built!
Got one sitting on the desk right now.
It's a 03 Rand Mac.
There's also a '00 Delorme atlas of Wisconsin that got the same treatment. I've still got an non-fantasy one too. They're both from before Delorme downgraded their cartography to that pile of shit they have now. :banghead: How am I supposed to correct the many errors now? I can't even look at the highway shields without vomiting. :pan: X-(
Quote from: Henry on January 25, 2011, 12:29:22 PM
Has anyone ever drawn their own highways on old road atlases? I did that a lot with some old Rand McNally atlases, back when they had lots of broken lines where the interstates were planned to be built!
Plenty of times. I've even done that with road maps that I knew needed to be corrected. I must admit that's one of the many regrets in my life.
Quote from: Duke87 on January 25, 2011, 07:41:52 PM
Yup. Used to do that all the time.
...which I now regret having done, because what could have been some nice old maps were scribbled all over and abused to the point of falling apart. :no:
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 26, 2011, 04:50:21 PM
Got one sitting on the desk right now.
It's a 03 Rand Mac.
There's also a '00 Delorme atlas of Wisconsin that got the same treatment. I've still got an non-fantasy one too. They're both from before Delorme downgraded their cartography to that pile of shit they have now. :banghead: How am I supposed to correct the many errors now? I can't even look at the highway shields without vomiting. :pan: X-(
Quote from: D-Dey65 on February 08, 2011, 05:12:59 PM
Plenty of times. I've even done that with road maps that I knew needed to be corrected. I must admit that's one of the many regrets in my life.
Well, at least it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one! Although I do have one regret myself: not saving those maps so I could scan them for displaying in the Fictional Highways thread... X-(
I drew the maps like you guys and also used colored markers to draw the actual roads, paint lines, routes, intersections, signs and signals. I have probably 10 or 15 notebooks full of these scenes. They're a lot like the pictures burgess87 posted. :)