- I-26: My favourite part, because I managed to keep the route dead straight!
- PDX: home!
- ...on a lonely route somewhere off the Outer Rim.... - riffsyphon1024
- Still room to grow for the interstate system. No I-50 or I-60. - riffsyphon1024
Eisenhower Interstate System in the style of H.C. Beck's London Underground Diagram
Why are you looking at this old thing? Check out the newer, updated, better version here.
Elsewhere on the internet, there are other diagrams that are all highly simplified versions of America's Interstate system, and all are very interesting if not 100% accurate. However, despite being called "subway style" maps by many people who have found them, they actually bear little resemblance to the best examples of that genre. Typically, a good metro map (or diagram, to be more correct, as they are rarely geographically accurate enough to be a true map) uses colour coding of lines and a clear hierarchy of detail to present a lot of information very concisely and clearly.
So that's what I have set out to do. Drawing my cues from the original and best metro diagram, H.C. Beck's wonderful London Underground diagram, I have rendered the Interstate system in a much simpler form. I have made the "major" highways (those divisible by 5) the framework of the map, with the "minor" highways reduced in importance and rendered as thinner grey lines. Even with these highways, a difference in the greys indicates whether they are even-numbered (west-east) or odd-numbered (north-south). Dots on the highways indicate interchanges: large dots where major highways meet other major highways, smaller dots where major meets minor and tiny dots where minor highways begin or end. A full key at the bottom indicates clearly where each highway begins and ends.
Comments and faves
raquelbailey, geoff.greene, ecastro, Brian W, and 657 other people added this photo to their favorites.
femmecorsair (43 months ago | reply)
Wicked Cool.
rebeccacbrown13 (43 months ago | reply)
Your map is beautiful! Definitely an improvement on the graphic presentation of my version. It's been fascinating and fulfilling to see the evolution of this concept play out on the internet. Yours certainly takes the cake, though, in combining detail, accuracy, and readability while remaining true to the subway-style design.
Refidnas (43 months ago | reply)
Absolutely awesome. Well done.
yogiknits (43 months ago | reply)
I've been trying to do one of these for the Los Angeles Basin since I moved here 3 years ago. You've given me a lot to think about!
Thanks!
Yogi
bahowen (43 months ago | reply)
No label for Salt Lake City?
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
Thanks for that - the dot was there, just not the label. Fixed.
nicbarajas (43 months ago | reply)
Fantastic work. One correction; the city at the 88 terminus is Binghamton, not Binghampton.
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@ nicbarajas: So it is, thanks! Fixed (version 1.1.2).
dwight_ew (43 months ago | reply)
Nicely done! I'm trying to work out something along the same lines for my Ideal VIA Rail Route Network Map
TomC (43 months ago | reply)
Wonderful! Will this be sold as a poster or a fine art print?
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@ TomC: you're the first person to ask. We'll see... if there's demand, then a set of prints could be a possibility. If you're interested, speak up, people! Comment here, FlickrMail me, or send an email to: camgbooth -at- gmail -dot- com.
notpierre (43 months ago | reply)
This is so cool. I would like to buy a print.
David Matthew Parker (43 months ago | reply)
Yours is much easier to understand. Another correction: the western terminus of I-70 is Cove Fort, not Fort Cove.
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@ David Matthew Parker: thanks for that, must have subliminally swapped the word order in my head when I typed it :-(
November 10th, 2009: Fixed (v1.1.3)
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
Oh, and thanks to all the visitors who have made this my most viewed image on Flickr in just 8 days since I first uploaded it!
TomC (43 months ago | reply)
How long did it take to create it?
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@TomC: probably the best part of 35-40 hours, spread out over a couple of weeks. Hooray for Adobe Illustrator, Wikipedia, Google Maps and a lot of patience!
meaghano (43 months ago | reply)
There's a typo on my hometown, Slidell, (along I-10, right outside of New Orleans)!!
This is AWESOME, btw :)
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
Welcome to all the visitors from the Coudal Partners website! :-)
gabemortoncook (43 months ago | reply)
Awesome! Just came over from coudal.
It might be cool to add notations of the mileage between "stops", similar to the way some subway maps show the time between stops.
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@meaghano: thanks for that keen eye! Next on my "to fix" list!
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@gabemortoncook: perhaps, but would another layer of information obscure the clarity of design?
jcgr (43 months ago | reply)
Wonderful!
qakkar (43 months ago | reply)
Ah, it gets bigger when you login. Thank you flickr for not letting on.
To gabemortoncook: The idea would be to emulate the 1930s Underground map. If it had mileage, it would make sense in this case.
Nice effort!
Peeved Michelle (43 months ago | reply)
I love it. It looks like you can drive anywhere in the country in a jiffy.
empathyislost (43 months ago | reply)
Miami is missing a marker, and Orlando isn't marked. In Florida, I-4 is known to run from "Tampa to Orlando to Daytona Beach"
jacobpatton (43 months ago | reply)
I'd love to buy a print!
d.esk (43 months ago | reply)
Nice. Unfortunately Pittsburgh seems to have been decapitated from this map.
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@empathyislost: Good idea, thanks. There's definitely room for Orlando. Miami is intentionally shown without a "dot", as it's a route terminus. It should have a little bar across the end of the line, but it just looked odd with two routes ending at 90 degrees to each other.
@d.esk: it seems to me that Pittsburgh sits BETWEEN I-70, I-76 and I-79 but isn't actually ON any of them... there are rules that I've set up to include cities on this map, and Pittsburgh doesn't seem to meet them, even though it's a pretty big city.
escottf (43 months ago | reply)
There's a typo under the Eisenhower Interstate System header - misspelling of Underground.
Superbly done though - I can imagine a few people who've driven the US would love this as a poster.
sugati (43 months ago | reply)
awesomeness! just an fyi though, "sidell" should be "slidell" (in louisiana)
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@escottf: Argh, that's just embarrassing :-( Definitely something to fix.
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@ sugati: already on my "to fix" list. (see meaghano's post above).
Virginia Werewolves (43 months ago | reply)
Would you be willing to share the vector version for those of us who wanted printed out on a plotter?
Brilliant idea, everyone at my studio are diggin on this today.
Jessimuhka (43 months ago | reply)
Add me to the "interested in a print" list.
Jeff Keen (43 months ago | reply)
I can not adequately express how much I love this.
Tuffer.com (43 months ago | reply)
Prints for purchase would be cool.
patrix99 (43 months ago | reply)
I would love to buy a print too. Once the corrections are fixed, of course :) Cool job; both in terms of graphics and information.
tcn33 (43 months ago | reply)
I'd buy a print.
RageEar (43 months ago | reply)
I would definitely buy a print of this.
kickthebeat (43 months ago | reply)
this is brilliant. i'd take a print, if they were available!
professor.elliott (43 months ago | reply)
Add me to the "want to be a print" list. Fantastic.
memos to the future (43 months ago | reply)
this is amazing.
odin.tangvald (43 months ago | reply)
Is there any possible way to get this in a larger format? I'm going to use this for a road trip! :)
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
All who are interested in prints: I am working on it - stay tuned!
Kaiho_ (43 months ago | reply)
This is beautiful abstraction. Exactly how it should be done. Beck would be proud.
blech (43 months ago | reply)
Those pointed corners make it look more like Hutchinson's terrible 1963 map than any of the Beck or Garbutt diagrams. Still, nice idea.
michael.wendell (43 months ago | reply)
Yeah, I'd buy a print... hurry up with that!
lamplabs (43 months ago | reply)
Nice work. Houlton is in Maine, not Canada though.
Cameron Booth (43 months ago | reply)
@ blech: My corners are rounded more than Hutchinson (which is a terrible version), but perhaps not quite as much as Beck and Garbutt.
@ machus: yes, but all border crossing towns are treated consistently across the map. I'm trying to indicate that Houlton is the last town before the road reaches Canada (hence the Canadian flag next to the name). Maybe a dot on the border would be a helpful addition?