Map showing every U.S. Highway that ever existed?

[bandit957]

Has anyone here ever thought about setting up a nationwide map that shows - in hairy detail - every route in the U.S. Numbered Highway system that ever existed and every known routing of each?

I'm sure one person can't do it all, but I can see this being a project where many people would contribute.

[getemngo]

This would be a monumental undertaking. Chris Bessert attempted to do this for all of Michigan's state trunklines and then stopped after just one sparsely populated county (Alcona).

It may be possible with many hands working on it, as you said, maybe one person per state. But as a stepping stone, it might be easier to first map what the whole system looked like only in certain years (1926, 1930, 1940, 1950, etc).

[Kacie Jane]

I believe you'd have what you're looking for simply by overlaying these two maps. http://www.usends.com/Explore/Parity/index.html  (Or would that detail not be hairy enough for you?)

[getemngo]

That map only shows current alignments of current routes, and one alignment of each former/truncated route.

every known routing of each?

My impression is that Tim is suggesting a map, or series of maps, with every alignment that's ever existed of every route, down to the street level or close to it. (Or am I wrong about that last part?)

[Kacie Jane]

That map only shows current alignments of current routes, and one alignment of each former/truncated route.

Not strictly true - given the focus of the site, I'm guessing it shows any alignment that results in a different endpoint. But, yeah, it definitely doesn't get down to street level.

[brianreynolds]

Not that I have the time or talent to make this happen, but Tim's idea sparked a (fantasy) idea.  The map could be somewhat animated; a two-dimensional rendering could add a third dimension:  time.  The scope of the map would be similar to Google Maps (complete with modern satellite imagery), and the amount of detail would vary with variations of scale.  At any given scale, with the click of a button, the map would begin in 1926 (or any given year), and then shift (like time lapse photography) a year at a time, one year per second or so, until the present.  In 90 seconds or less, you could view the evolution of the road system, to the scope and scale you would like.  A dandy Master's thesis project for some historical cartography major Road-OCD student.  If I was young and in college now, I could be persuaded.  I'm not, and I'm not.

[bandit957]

I believe you'd have what you're looking for simply by overlaying these two maps. http://www.usends.com/Explore/Parity/index.html  (Or would that detail not be hairy enough for you?)

I'm talking about something with street-level detail.

[agentsteel53]

Not that I have the time or talent to make this happen, but Tim's idea sparked a (fantasy) idea.  The map could be somewhat animated; a two-dimensional rendering could add a third dimension:  time.  The scope of the map would be similar to Google Maps (complete with modern satellite imagery), and the amount of detail would vary with variations of scale.  At any given scale, with the click of a button, the map would begin in 1926 (or any given year), and then shift (like time lapse photography) a year at a time, one year per second or so, until the present.  In 90 seconds or less, you could view the evolution of the road system, to the scope and scale you would like.  A dandy Master's thesis project for some historical cartography major Road-OCD student.  If I was young and in college now, I could be persuaded.  I'm not, and I'm not.

I've always wished google maps would add a "time" slider.  certainly there'd be a lot of incomplete info, but who wouldn't love to set the clock to 1946 and navigate from New York to Los Angeles?

[bandit957]

Historicaerials.com has old USGS topo quads that we can use.

[US81]

I love this concept. 

[Alps]

Not that I have the time or talent to make this happen, but Tim's idea sparked a (fantasy) idea.  The map could be somewhat animated; a two-dimensional rendering could add a third dimension:  time.  The scope of the map would be similar to Google Maps (complete with modern satellite imagery), and the amount of detail would vary with variations of scale.  At any given scale, with the click of a button, the map would begin in 1926 (or any given year), and then shift (like time lapse photography) a year at a time, one year per second or so, until the present.  In 90 seconds or less, you could view the evolution of the road system, to the scope and scale you would like.  A dandy Master's thesis project for some historical cartography major Road-OCD student.  If I was young and in college now, I could be persuaded.  I'm not, and I'm not.

I've always wished google maps would add a "time" slider.  certainly there'd be a lot of incomplete info, but who wouldn't love to set the clock to 1946 and navigate from New York to Los Angeles?

this is the greatest idea ever propounded herein

[usends]

Has anyone here ever thought about setting up a nationwide map that shows - in hairy detail - every route in the U.S. Numbered Highway system that ever existed and every known routing of each?

Thought about it?  Yes.  But...

I'm sure one person can't do it all, but I can see this being a project where many people would contribute.

...I agree, this would have to be very much a collaborative effort.  Even then, it would be a multi-year project.  Perhaps something implemented through a GIS framework, with web-based-editing capability... maybe sort of like Open Street Map.  But I would be uncomfortable with it being a wiki, open to just anyone for editing.  Rather, I would prefer that editors have to first receive approval through an admin.  Ideally I would want every edit cited to an historic DOT map, or route log, or something "official".

We would need to be able to add date attributes to each road segment.  So then an editor could go in and essentially say, "this segment has existed only since 1992; prior to that, the highway followed this segment over here".  We'd also have to allow for manually drawing in old alignments that are now completely gone from the current road network.  Eventually all this data would facilitate the creation of the type of animated map described upthread.  But obviously the base data could serve many other uses as well.

[texaskdog]

just when we thought Dale had one hanging in his living room

[Brian556]

I would call these "Highway History Maps"
And, yes, they defiantly should exist.
They should show all former designations and alignments of all highways, not just US Highways.

I am currently working on some of these for North Texas, and a few areas of Florida.
They are drawn in pencil, since I don't have any map-making software, and that method is easy.

The one big problem I'm running into for Texas is the lack of information from the 20's and 30's. TxDOT Highway Designation files only go back to 1939; and I cannot find maps showing early alignments. Basically, I cannot figure out if the designations were placed on existing county roads that stair stepped or jogged around, or if they waited to get an actual state-constructed roadway built. Some existing state maps have hints of these, but are not detailed enough to rely on.

I really want to find this information so that my maps can be "full-assed", and not be missing information.

Animations would be very helpful, especially for areas that had tons of changes.

[Alps]

If a new road opens and the old road closes in June 1992, which road appears when you select "1992"? The problem with allowing attributes for month is that many projects won't have that specificity.

[Pete from Boston]

Not that I have the time or talent to make this happen, but Tim's idea sparked a (fantasy) idea.  The map could be somewhat animated; a two-dimensional rendering could add a third dimension:  time.  The scope of the map would be similar to Google Maps (complete with modern satellite imagery), and the amount of detail would vary with variations of scale.  At any given scale, with the click of a button, the map would begin in 1926 (or any given year), and then shift (like time lapse photography) a year at a time, one year per second or so, until the present.  In 90 seconds or less, you could view the evolution of the road system, to the scope and scale you would like.  A dandy Master's thesis project for some historical cartography major Road-OCD student.  If I was young and in college now, I could be persuaded.  I'm not, and I'm not.

I've always wished google maps would add a "time" slider.  certainly there'd be a lot of incomplete info, but who wouldn't love to set the clock to 1946 and navigate from New York to Los Angeles?

this is the greatest idea ever propounded herein

This is a full-time job (which presumably consigns it to the work of an academic).   

Sadly, the money's in the future, not the past, which is why work on the past moves much more slowly, which is poison to its very nature.

The more I think about it, the more this sounds like a long-term collaborative project.

[usends]

If a new road opens and the old road closes in June 1992, which road appears when you select "1992"? The problem with allowing attributes for month is that many projects won't have that specificity.

Yeah, in many cases I haven't even been able to figure out the exact year of a change, much less a specific month.  So the month field would have to be optional, not required.  When an editor is entering just the year of a change, maybe the system default would be that the old segment existed until Dec. 31 of the previous year, and the new segment opened on Jan. 1.  That would be an obvious clue to subsequent editors that the exact month was not known at the time of the original edit.

[texaskdog]

So we'd just estimate unless anyone in particular cared enough to research, etc.

Sounds even more combursome than taking a picture of the end of every US highway.

[Henry]

I'd like to see the complete map! After all, it would be too confusing to have just two separate maps.

[berberry]

Not that I have the time or talent to make this happen, but Tim's idea sparked a (fantasy) idea.  The map could be somewhat animated; a two-dimensional rendering could add a third dimension:  time.  The scope of the map would be similar to Google Maps (complete with modern satellite imagery), and the amount of detail would vary with variations of scale.  At any given scale, with the click of a button, the map would begin in 1926 (or any given year), and then shift (like time lapse photography) a year at a time, one year per second or so, until the present.  In 90 seconds or less, you could view the evolution of the road system, to the scope and scale you would like.  A dandy Master's thesis project for some historical cartography major Road-OCD student.  If I was young and in college now, I could be persuaded.  I'm not, and I'm not.

How about wikimaps?  There isn't one, although there is a wikimapia.  That project seeks to plot every geographic object and feature that exists, and as such it is concerned only with the present.  What you are suggesting is a roadmap history, showing accurate alignment and features for any and all US highway and interstate routes, for each year that the numbered system has existed, right?   Maybe even including the old Auto Trails?  Sounds like a wiki-style project to me.

It would seem the first step would be to acquire some open-source cartography software, with a basic template of the US, zoomable down to a city-block.

Wikimapia has that much, apparently, although I don't know how good it is and whether it can be copied for this purpose.  But it seems to me that the first thing needed will be collabarative, open-source cartography software.

To Alps' question, I would say that, at least n the early phases of the project, assuming it ever gets going, I would suggest one map per year.  If we want to get down to months, that could be added later.  I would source the information on the wikimap by state using the rule that if an official highway map exists for a given state for a given year, then that map will be considered the best-source map for the project of that state, that year.  If there is more than one official state map for a given year (I can think of a couple instances), then the final published official map for that year should be the best source.

For states and/or years where official maps don't exist or are not available, then we need to agree on which commercially branded maps should be consulted first, second, etc.

This sounds like a terrific idea to me.  If the project gets underway I would love to help out.

Does anybody know anybody who works at Google?  It'd be great to get permission to use their mapping software.  Their highway data wouldn't be needed.

[froggie]

An OSM-based medium may be a better venue to use for this, in part because OSM has shapefile-import capability.

[Pete from Boston]

Not that I have the time or talent to make this happen, but Tim's idea sparked a (fantasy) idea.  The map could be somewhat animated; a two-dimensional rendering could add a third dimension:  time.  The scope of the map would be similar to Google Maps (complete with modern satellite imagery), and the amount of detail would vary with variations of scale.  At any given scale, with the click of a button, the map would begin in 1926 (or any given year), and then shift (like time lapse photography) a year at a time, one year per second or so, until the present.  In 90 seconds or less, you could view the evolution of the road system, to the scope and scale you would like.  A dandy Master's thesis project for some historical cartography major Road-OCD student.  If I was young and in college now, I could be persuaded.  I'm not, and I'm not.

How about wikimaps?  There isn't one, although there is a wikimapia.  That project seeks to plot every geographic object and feature that exists, and as such it is concerned only with the present.  What you are suggesting is a roadmap history, showing accurate alignment and features for any and all US highway and interstate routes, for each year that the numbered system has existed, right?   Maybe even including the old Auto Trails?  Sounds like a wiki-style project to me.

It would seem the first step would be to acquire some open-source cartography software, with a basic template of the US, zoomable down to a city-block.

Wikimapia has that much, apparently, although I don't know how good it is and whether it can be copied for this purpose.  But it seems to me that the first thing needed will be collabarative, open-source cartography software.

To Alps' question, I would say that, at least n the early phases of the project, assuming it ever gets going, I would suggest one map per year.  If we want to get down to months, that could be added later.  I would source the information on the wikimap by state using the rule that if an official highway map exists for a given state for a given year, then that map will be considered the best-source map for the project of that state, that year.  If there is more than one official state map for a given year (I can think of a couple instances), then the final published official map for that year should be the best source.

For states and/or years where official maps don't exist or are not available, then we need to agree on which commercially branded maps should be consulted first, second, etc.

This sounds like a terrific idea to me.  If the project gets underway I would love to help out.

Does anybody know anybody who works at Google?  It'd be great to get permission to use their mapping software.  Their highway data wouldn't be needed.

Google Earth and Historic Aerials both have imprecisely-graduated sliders that can adapt easily to time layers inserted between existing ones. 

I actually have vague plans to do a small project like this to model the development over time of the area in which I grew up, showing growth phases over the years, etc.  So the mechanics of a project like this piques my interest.  So far I have the rudiments of a database of streets (not yet geocoded), where I'm mostly trying to assign time data at the moment.

[texaskdog]

http://www.historicaerials.com/  This site shows aeriel pictures from different years.  Seems like the same thing we're trying to do.

[Pete from Boston]

http://www.historicaerials.com/  This site shows aeriel pictures from different years.  Seems like the same thing we're trying to do.

It's been mentioned already, but I don't think it's the same thing being discussed here, which is a thematic map of specific information.  Historic Aerials is a scattershot amassing of photos for some places, topo maps for some places.  It's an amazing resource, but not really a focused source of particular information.

[usends]

This seems like an appropriate thread in which to post a link to an interesting US/interstate highway map that I just recently found out about:
http://www.cambooth.net/archives/1315