A road-trip app developer has developed a three-dimensional map and another website that lists every business on Route 66.
Jake Boyles, who described himself has “a dad of 5 who lives near Cincinnati who who builds a road trip app nights and weekends,” stated in an email to Route 66 News that he has mapped “every living business on the driveable route” of Route 66.
One website is a 3-D map via Pit Stop “where you scroll the whole road “in one go, vintage atlas style with real elevation and every business as a dot.”
The other Pit Stop website is a town-by-town guide to Route 66.
Statistics from Boyles’ maps of the eight states that Route 66 traverses:
- 2,199 miles covered
- 280 towns
- 2,464 places to eat
- 1,285 motels
- 1,185 attractions
Boyles says Oklahoma, surprisingly, has the “most living route of any state” (376 miles over 57 stops), while Arizona has 377 miles.
Asked how long it took to create the websites, Boyles stated: “The 3D drive itself didn’t take long, maybe a week to get it working and then a few late nights tweaking things like the elevation and the road-atlas styling.
“The longer effort was the database underneath it. I’ve been mapping the businesses along the route since June, and that same data runs the town guide pages and our road trip app. The flyover is mostly a new way of looking at data I already had.”
Boyles acknowledged not including the Santa Fe Loop and the 1926-32 alignment of Route 66 south of Springfield, Illinois.
“Everything in the experience (the odometer, the town order, the camera path) follows one continuous mile-by-mile line, and the older alignments split the mileage in ways I couldn’t handle cleanly,” he wrote.
“Leaving out the Santa Fe Loop bugged me the most. If I ever add historic loops as optional detours, that one goes in first, then the 1926-30s Illinois routings.”
The projects are reminiscent of Jack Rittenhouse’s 1946 publication, “A Guide Book to Highway 66” (Amazon affiliate link). Boyles admitted not considering that comparison before.
“The comparison had not occurred to me and I like it a lot. A mile-by-mile record of what’s actually open and alive on the road is pretty much what I’m going for, except this one updates itself, and travelers send in corrections. We’ve already gotten a few through the 3D site, including a museum that had moved to a different town and a restaurant in Illinois we had missed.”
Boyles said he’s looking at “any and all feedback and suggestions or corrections I could get” for the websites. He can be contacted by email at jake@pit-stop-app.com.
(Screen-capture image from Pit Stop’s 3D Route 66 map near Tulsa)