The Green Bag

I tagged this page on del.icio.us last week, but haven't had time to blog about it until now. This map of the Eisenhower Interstate System is one of the most interesting maps I've ever seen.

When you disregard the actual distances between cities on the map, the relationships between the different Interstates becomes immediately clear. Thanks to some history bits on the radio, I recently learned about Henry Joy and his relationship to the Interstate 80 transcontinental route between New York and San Francisco. (I did not really know, until researching this entry, about the full significance of the Lincoln Highway, a portion of which I've ridden by bicycle where it passes by Orrville, as the first highway across America.)

Even after learning more about I-80, I never put together some of the other relationships, like I-90 from Boston to Seattle, or I-10 running from Jacksonville to LA. Heck, while I knew the odd ones went north/south and the evens east/west (with the partial exception of I-69 in Michigan,) I never even noticed that the numbers got higher as you went north and east.

This is truly a useful and interesting piece of artwork.