Tracing the World's Most Complicated Roadways With GPS Data

The intricate highway interchange is always easier to appreciate from above. Take away the congestion, the last-minute mergers, the tail-pipe exhaust, the conflicting road signs and the vertigo, and a perfect cloverleaf really starts to look like a marvel of engineering.

Perhaps you've seen photos like these that capture the most complex Interstate overpasses as interlocking ribbons of asphalt. The above image, though, presents some of this same information in a quieter, more beautiful way, reducing interchanges – in this case, the intersection of I-70 and the I-465 beltway around Indianapolis – to their simplest geometry.