How can I draw a street grid using the map service?

Software developer Andrei Kashcha has created a free website called City Roads, which allows you to display on your screen the street network of any point in the world, in the form of a simple line graph instead of the usual map view.

The service is available at https://anvaka.github.io/city-roads/. It is easy to manage. Type the name of the desired city in the search box. Of course, it’s faster and more accurate to use the English name, so for example, instead of “Wien”, type “Vienna”.

Then click on Find City Bounds and select the appropriate place name. For larger cities, it will take a minute for the service to produce a map using information available on the internet. The data used comes from the free OpenStreetMap database, built with community help.

A click on the Customize button at the top left opens up more options to change the color of the lines, background, and names. If you’re really in love with the service, you can print your chosen map to a cup through Zazzle and send it to yourself, or download the image as a PNG or vector file to print on a map or poster for example.