November 23, 2008: Roads

[mrputter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Rail and air routes would not show you that.

I'm actually not so sure about that. You'd have a case for air routes, but only because of international routes, and the transcontinental routes (think: Boston ⇔ Seattle) that arc up over Canada; if you filter out the former, I think you'd be able to see something.

Now of course it wouldn't precisely match the US' political outline in the same striking manner as the road map above does. But I'd be rather surprised if some distorted phantom of the familiar american outline didn't appear, if for no other reason than because of all the large cities that dot the eastern and western coastlines.

I, too, would be interested in seeing such maps. If only to see how great the distortion was.