Boston Road Network Map
Boston's street plan follows organic 17th-century colonial paths, transformed by the Back Bay Victorian grid and the famous Big Dig subterranean highway system.
Road Typology & Facts
Local / Native Name
Boston
Urban Grid Pattern
Colonial Organic / Back Bay Grid
Estimated Road Ways
16,000+
Geographic Bounding Box
42.23, -71.19 to 42.40, -70.92
Primary Arterial Corridors
Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, Boylston Street, Storrow Drive, I-93 Central Artery
Data Source
OpenStreetMap (ODbL)
Developer & Export API
Extract vector SVG geometries directly into your web applications or pen plotters:
// Programmatically extract Boston roads:
const res = await window.cityRoads.loadCity('Boston', {
minLength: 2, // Filter micro segments
includeLabels: true // Minimalist typography
});
console.log(res.svg); // Clean XML <path> markup
Supports iframe postMessage bridge for automated pipelines.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does City Roads render Boston roads?
City Roads pulls raw street geometries from OpenStreetMap using the Overpass API or pre-indexed protobuf graphs, rendering them in real time on a high-performance WebGL canvas.
Can I export high-resolution posters of Boston?
Yes! The interactive viewer allows selecting custom background paper hues, ink colors, and exporting vector SVG (infinitely scalable) or print-quality PNG raster snapshots.
Is commercial use permitted?
Map geometries are licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) by OpenStreetMap contributors. You are free to print, plot, and share visualizations with appropriate OSM credit.