Vetted route geometry
Normalize every state layer into GeoJSON with era, source, license, confidence, access, surface, and reviewer fields.
Alignment overlay atlas
Mother Road layers.
A street-level Route 66 atlas with road-snapped travel lines, historic alignment overlays, lost-road research zones, LiDAR terrain, passport stops, and source confidence labels.
Loading map layers
Preparing street-level Route 66 overlays.
Rendered USGS 3DEP LiDAR now appears directly on this map for the Painted Desert proof corridor. The full Chicago-to-LA 10-mile path is visible as the production tile lane until each corridor section is rendered into web map tiles.
Location is not requested until you tap the button.
Accuracy plan
Ten-foot useful means source discipline.
The map zooms to street and block level while each alignment keeps a visible confidence label. Route accuracy comes from licensed or attribution-ready GIS, public map data, state sources, preservation research, and approved field surveys.
Field traces
Approved GPX/KML field surveys can become public, member-only, or research-only overlays with source notes and permission attached.
Segment evidence
Every line tap should explain whether it is current, historic, abandoned, uncertain, private, drivable, or preservation-sensitive.
Historic aerial timeline
Slide Route 66 through time.
The long-term target is a licensed year-by-year aerial layer from Chicago to Los Angeles: old roadbeds, bypassed towns, motel courts, bridges, gas stations, and neon districts visible under today’s route map.
66
licensed imagery only
Aerial controls
Aerial year stack
The year slider is designed for licensed historic aerial layers so travelers can compare old roads, bypasses, motels, signs, and towns against the current map.
1930s1950s1970s1990sCurrent
Partner first
No scraping, tracing, caching, re-hosting, screenshots, or public tiles unless a written license allows the exact use.
Raster tile pipeline
Store licensed GeoTIFF/COG/PMTiles privately, publish only approved web tiles, and serve them with attribution and access controls.
Year-by-year context
Show available years by map area, then compare old aerials with current roads, route vectors, QR stops, and preservation stories.
Sourced stop history
Put names and records behind the pins.
The map can carry story dossiers for owners, builders, bridge designers, road crews, preservation volunteers, source links, and unresolved archive leads.
USGS 3DEP LiDAR corridor
Point clouds for the Mother Road.
The free-data path is USGS 3DEP: index every LiDAR product that intersects Route 66, stream point clouds where possible, and derive bare-earth terrain, surface models, hillshades, and old-road research candidates.
USGS 3DEP metadata first
Live LiDAR modes
Terrain, structures, roadbeds.
The first real proof area is the Painted Desert Trading Post close-up. The broader west corridor now extends south past the Petrified Forest Route 66 marker area to keep the old-road dip in view, using 67 USGS 3DEP products processed into 2-meter hillshade and color-relief overlays.
Point cloudBare earthSurface modelHillshadeClassification
Tap “Show rendered LiDAR” on the main map to display real orange relief and gray hillshade imagery directly over the route. No separate LiDAR viewer is required.
Free source index
Use LidarExplorer, TNM Access API, 3DEP coverage footprints, AWS EPT, and Planetary Computer COPC to find available data.
Derived terrain products
Process proof areas into DTM, DSM, hillshade, slope, intensity, and classification layers before publishing anything heavy.
Stop-level scenes
Attach reviewed point-cloud scenes to places, QR signs, lost alignments, bridges, terrain passes, and preservation stories.
Smooth corridor
Display a clean 10-mile buffer around the tighter route-snap, old alignments, and lost-road research zones.
Curated Route 66 stops
Stamp the Mother Road.
Stamp featured stops, build a road log, and use the passport page for GPS/photo proof when a verified reward or badge is available.