Transportation

Cities, Mapped by Their Snow Routes

Street grids of necessity.
DDOT

If you love the geometry of street grids – the spare way they convey differences in scale, density, and development patterns – the below maps reduce a city's shape to something even simpler: those essential arteries worth plowing in a snow emergency.

With this elegant (but functional!) map of Washington, D.C.'s emergency snow routes in mind, we tracked down maps of several cities as they appear on days like today on the East Coast, in the heart of a sweeping snow storm. Bad weather reduces a city to its critical bones, as most of us stay home. All but the most important roads remain inaccessible. Residential neighborhoods stay snowed-under in favor of commercial corridors and highways. Major bus routes take precedent over side streets, as do downtown districts over peripheral communities.