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Most of my driving is on the highway, but unfortunately I live in the Foothills in Cali and thus the freeway is absolute killer on my FE; 50% of the time it's never less than a 15 degree grade, and sometimes up to 30 degrees incline. Ironically, I find I get better FE in city stop-and-go than on long journeys, as at least most roads are level in town.

I'm trying to plot out a flatter, smoother route for me to take, but I haven't been able to find an topological charts for my area. I don't drive so much that I know every backroad like my hand either, so doing it by sight wont help.

I was wondering what you use to figure out the best routes. Is there a website out there that could be useful for this?

Combination of:

pioneers
maps.google.com
toporoute.com
google earth



pioneers Two variations on this one:

First, there are the "young" pioneers who could recommend better routes. I drove a vanpool for a number of years, and vanpool drivers "handed down" the wisdom of various routes to one another. One of the routes I *still* use today is a *minor* variation of one handed down to me over 20 years ago. Find someone who travels the same A->B->A commute that you do, and ask if they have any alternate routes. You might be surprised at what you learn. (And you might find a carpool partner or two as well.)

And, the "old" pioneers. The movie "Cars" had a great scene with Sally remembering the old days. The roads used to flow *with* the land, rather than force their way *through* the land. In these parts, the battle roads followed the land with reasonable grades. Honking a cannon up and down grades was not fun. (Of course the colonialists were sniping at the regulars from the hills.) So, look to some of the older roads in the foothills. Some old maps can help here as well.

maps.google.com This one has gotten very good.

First, there is the "Terrain" option, which can give you a reasonable visual lay of the land.

Second, you can choose "avoid highways" option to give you some alternate routes that aren't bad.

Third, there is "drag to change route." Hold your cursor over the blue route for a moment, and then "drag" the route to a new intermediate way point. (There will also be timing estimates of how much this manual route will cost you.)

Fourth, for many areas there is "street view." This will tediously answer the age old question: How many stop signs and traffic signals are on this route? The advantage is you burn very little fuel to answer this question with street view. (Just the power your PC/Mac is using and the power the google servers are consuming to answer your queries.)

toporoute.com

Even though it's targeted to bicyclists, this site lets you lay down a route and get raw topodata quickly, and plot out a (crude) elevation map for a route. It also doesn't require you to save a route, so fewer privacy concerns. BUT, you can't right click and "save as" an elevation map - you'll have to use printscreen (windows) or grab (OS X) to save away your maps.

google earth

First, it gives you the highest performance close in aerial views. Depending on the time the aerial views were taken, you can even get a sense of the traffic.

Second, you can exaggerate the terrain, which the Flat Venus Society hates but is *very* useful visual tool for route planning.

Last, it has a layer that can access real time travel data (generally on major roads near major cities) which can primarily answer questions about highway congestion and/or how high above PSL is some traffic moving.

-mr. bill