skewed road grid in west Texas
November 1, 2015 9:40 AM Subscribe
Why is the road grid in a vast swath of west Texas rotated about 12 or 15 degrees counterclockwise from true north? Roughly between Pecos, Lamesa, Abilene, and Stiles. The county lines are mostly on the NSEW grid, or on natural features like rivers.
Might it be so that people don't drive directly into the rising sun on the way to work, and directly into the setting sun on their way home? I remember a main road in Idaho that was like that—headaches and poor visibility in each direction.
posted by blueberry at 9:51 AM on November 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by blueberry at 9:51 AM on November 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: the short answer is that the land was originally surveyed this way. you can find a shapefile of the Original Texas Land Survey here. I opened it up in QGIS and took a look. Here's a map of the original land survey areas; you can see their orientation and the broad swath of 'tilted' surveys that stretch from just north of Abilene west to Odessa and beyond.
posted by wikipedia brown boy detective at 10:22 AM on November 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by wikipedia brown boy detective at 10:22 AM on November 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: What you're really asking is, "Why don't the roads follow the same grid orientation as most roads in the Public Land Survey System (PLSS)?"
The PLSS system was put into place prior to Texas becoming a state, but because parts of Texas had been under a system of Spanish rule it has some land in various places that fit under the old Spanish land grants under a survey system called the abstract/metes/bounds system. But after Texas came into the US, railroad companies in the area you are describing were sent into survey and brought their own system with them - and when merged with the old Texas abstract system created a hybrid system in this area. You can read more about this here.
posted by barchan at 10:36 AM on November 1, 2015 [12 favorites]
The PLSS system was put into place prior to Texas becoming a state, but because parts of Texas had been under a system of Spanish rule it has some land in various places that fit under the old Spanish land grants under a survey system called the abstract/metes/bounds system. But after Texas came into the US, railroad companies in the area you are describing were sent into survey and brought their own system with them - and when merged with the old Texas abstract system created a hybrid system in this area. You can read more about this here.
posted by barchan at 10:36 AM on November 1, 2015 [12 favorites]
the short answer is that the land was originally surveyed this way. But that returns us to the same question, doesn't it? Why was it surveyed that way?
Most of that territory was undeveloped until the construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway in the 1870s. If you look at that railroad on Google maps, at Monahans, the road grid aligns perfectly with the railroad (which is parallel to old Route 20). The roads were laid out by railroad surveyors since the railroad was given extensive land grants. It made sense for them to align road systems with the tracks, so that farmers and others could have the shortest possible routes to railroad depots. But the railroad changed direction here and there so the grid is not aligned with it when you go farther east from Monahans. My guess is that they started surveying in Monahans and didn't change the coordinates as they moved east and west from there.
posted by beagle at 10:47 AM on November 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Most of that territory was undeveloped until the construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway in the 1870s. If you look at that railroad on Google maps, at Monahans, the road grid aligns perfectly with the railroad (which is parallel to old Route 20). The roads were laid out by railroad surveyors since the railroad was given extensive land grants. It made sense for them to align road systems with the tracks, so that farmers and others could have the shortest possible routes to railroad depots. But the railroad changed direction here and there so the grid is not aligned with it when you go farther east from Monahans. My guess is that they started surveying in Monahans and didn't change the coordinates as they moved east and west from there.
posted by beagle at 10:47 AM on November 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
« Older Can you help rid our home of these stubborn flies?... | Can anyone identify this device pointed at our... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by sexyrobot at 9:45 AM on November 1, 2015