The longest straight line in Nice Britain (with out crossing a public highway)

2023-04-07 08:30:05

In brief, I consider I’ve discovered an extended straight line with out crossing a public highway than the road recognized by Ordnance Survey in 2019. Here is a web map of the route. Essential stuff, clearly. Let me clarify.

It is a longer straight line than the one under

Again in 2018 somebody requested Ordnance Survey a question on Twitter, as follows:

“what (and the place) is the longest distance you possibly can stroll in a straight line in England/Wales/Scotland with out crossing a highway (outlined as a paved floor for vehicular use)??”

Notice ‘a paved floor for vehicular use’. That is crucial bit for me and the explanation I am coming again to it once more after years of working with this information and by no means fairly discovering time to analyze, till now.

It is a superb query. The reply the OS crew offered was then became a weblog publish on the OS web site in early 2019, and you can read that here however see under for his or her map. There’s additionally a improbable short film of Calum Maclean and Jenny Graham strolling the route.

71.5km or 44.43 miles

Now, let me say just a little bit extra. I am from the Highlands, know a number of this space fairly properly from my days biking round it on my mountain bike after I was a young person, in addition to a great deal of different journeys through the years for all kinds of causes. I additionally spend my days taking a look at map information as a result of that is a giant a part of my job and due to that one factor troubled me a bit about this reply from Ordnance Survey.

To be extra exact, as soon as once more, it is the ‘paved floor for vehicular use’ a part of the reply. I am going to clarify all under and my maps are very tough and fast however you will hopefully see what I imply.

The roads information

Ordnance Survey present a great deal of nice open information as of late, and a type of merchandise is their OS Open Roads product. Load it into your GIS software program and it appears just like the picture under. You’ll be able to see from simply eyeballing it the place the most important gaps within the highway community are – unsurprisingly, all within the north of Scotland. There are some gaps in England and Wales too however right here I am looking for the longest straight line between roads in Nice Britain so I am specializing in the north of Scotland. The longest line in Nice Britain can be the longest in the entire UK, as a result of the density of roads in Northern Eire is such that there is nowhere even remotely so long as the road above there.

All roads in Nice Britain

This OS roads file is about 2GB in dimension and is basically helpful. Nonetheless, after I’ve run completely different sorts of community analyses on it I generally run into issues as a result of it additionally contains roads that aren’t public. These are sometimes flagged as ‘Restricted Native Entry Roads’, and I’ve proven a few of these within the zoomed-in map under in purple. It’s possible you’ll suppose by trying that these are ‘roads’ however in actuality they’re normally unpaved personal tracks however extra on that additional down the web page.

Restricted ‘roads’ in purple right here

What do these restricted roads appear to be on the bottom? Properly, you possibly can have a look through Google avenue view lots of the time, and you too can get a way for what public roads are simply by hovering the road view icon over the map, like I’ve achieved under.

A a lot better illustration of public roads

For instance, if you happen to journey down the highway alongside the River Findhorn, you will finally get to the end of the public road. You’ll be able to after all hold occurring foot or in your bike due to the laws on access in Scotland however you possibly can’t drive down these routes (except you’ve got permission).

The tip of the general public highway

One other ‘Restricted Native Entry Street’ – see what I imply?

When you obtain the roads file after which make public roads one color (blue) after which the restricted roads a special color after which make a head-splitting gif of the consequence, that is what you get. Examine this for some time and you then begin to surprise if you could find an extended line than the OS one from 2019. Typically restricted entry roads are in locations like caravan parks, cemeteries, and the like – however within the Highlands they’re typically within the hills too.

A great deal of restricted entry roads (purple) on the map

Utilizing what I might take into account to be the ‘right’ OS roads file – i.e. the one consistent with the unique query and consistent with the idea of public roads – I can get an extended line within the unique Cairngorms route too, see under. Let’s fear about distance over undulating floor afterward.

I can get a distance over 74km (straight line) this fashion

However with my glasses on I may see a doubtlessly longer route, that simply missed a few public roads, this time to the west of the A9 as a substitute of the east. That is the map I posted at the beginning, and once more under.

From the A9 to close Fort William, a pleasant stroll

I’ve added terrain to this one, to point out how powerful this might be

Here is a top profile for anybody mad sufficient to be excited about doing this route. It appears horrendously tiring and nearly definitely fairly harmful except you are a little bit of an skilled. Items are in metres under and the max is nearly 3,000 toes, with a number of ups and downs. How a lot distance does this really add to the straight line?

Properly, it is by no means as a lot as I might suppose and it relies upon upon the accuracy of your terrain mannequin however utilizing the publicly obtainable OS Terrain 50 dataset I get a distance of 77.0 km / 47.8 miles for this so a bit longer than straight line distance. I calculated this in QGIS utilizing the Saga ‘Profiles from strains’ software.

A pleasant wee stroll

Anyway, that is what I get after I have a look at the information. A bit longer than the OS reply, however that is as a result of I’ve tried to stay to the spirit of the unique query. Get a special consequence? Discovered a mistake? Be at liberty to let me know.

Not straightforward

Need the road file to mess around with? It is in this folder, in geojson, gpkg, gpx and shp codecs. File identify is longest-straight-line-candidate adopted by the varied file extensions for every sort.

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