The KickMap New York iPhone app wins Halloween this year.
Source: Cooper Fleishman/Twitter
Welcome to Boo York!
Photo: Any Map Will Do
A giant wall map of bus routes from the Kempegowda bus station in Bangalore, India. The map may wish you a “happy and comfortable journey”, but it’s not doing you too many favours in helping you plot your route. A spider’s web of lines and hundreds of names cover the wall from floor to ceiling, all in blue and red on a yellow background. Some of the people in this photo seem to have been studying this map for quite a while…
Source: the_steve_cox/Flickr
Photo: Moscow Metro Advertisements
Two Moscow Metro ads from around 2004 or so. The one on the left is pretty average, but the dress in the poster on the right is beyond amazing.
The original source of these photos on Flickr seems to think that they’re recruitment ads for Metro staff, and translates the headlines as follows:
Left: In the Metro, the Weather’s Good
Right: Hit of the Season
Source: Esthr/Flickr
Fantasy Map: AWESOME Map!
A Vignelli-esque fictional map that explores all the different ways we can say “AWESOME!” And it makes a nice little “thumbs up” shape – also awesome! The slightly distressed effect in the printing is also pretty neat. Apparently this was produced for a show that opened here in Portland yesterday, but the link to the event’s Facebook page is broken.
If I’m going to be slightly picky with this ever-so-neat design, I’d have to say that the use of angled labels for the “station” names is out of character for a minimalist transit map like this – it’s certainly not how Vignelli himself would have done it, as his own New York subway map attests. There’s plenty of room to set everything horizontally, which makes the decision to do otherwise stand out even more.
Source: Jeffery F./Twitter
Photo: Vandalised/Redrawn SEPTA Map
Someone ripped the map off the wall, so a kind soul thoughtfully drew the routes and stations back on with a pen. If it’s done from memory, that’s fairly impressive work.
Source: Josh Kruger/Twitter – link no longer active
Historical Map: Tentative Location of Future Rapid Transit Lines, Philadelphia, 1913
From A. Merritt Taylor’s Report of Transit Commissioner, City of Philadelphia. At the time, only the current Market-Frankford Line (complete with “Ferry Line” extension at the east end) was operating, so everything else shown here is proposed. Coincidentally, the colour scheme used seems to be almost identical to that used today, although the colours actually indicate immediacy of construction – blue for extant, orange for “immediate construction” and green for “future construction”.
Source: 18brumaire/Flickr
Illustration: On the Subway, with the Subway
A neat little “on the subway” character sketch, complete with a cameo from the New York subway map in the background. Love it!
Source: amirocks/Flickr
Historical Map: Chicago Surface Lines (Streetcar) Transfer Ticket (date unknown)
A tiny little map of Chicago with streetcar lines and the underlying street grid printed on the obverse of a transfer ticket. It seems to be mainly used for indicating the time and place that the transfer was issued, rather than for any attempt at navigation of the system.
If I’m reading the clock face at the top of the ticket correctly, this transfer was issued at 3:35 (or 7:15) on July 2nd by a conductor on the Archer Avenue line. Note that this line is highlighted in red, and the zone that the transfer was issued in is also punched out on the map.
I’m presuming here that the road grid is the basis of the “zones” that the rather stern directions on the reverse of the ticket refer to. My favourite part is “Reverse riding will be subject to the questioning of the conductor.” Busted! I’m also thinking that the red “NE” and “SW” at the top right of the ticket indicate the initial direction of travel to make the conductor’s task easier in this regard. This makes sense, because then all the information that’s related to the Archer Avenue line itself is printed in red on top of the standard green ink… a clever cost-saving printing method.
I don’t have a date for this ticket, but it can’t be later than 1948, as that’s when the Archer Avenue line was abandoned. It certainly has a late 1930s-early 1940s feel to it.
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council (who erroneously label it as an “old CTA map”).
Photo: Red on Red
An old photo (taken in 2005 at Charles/MGH station according to the metadata over on Flickr), but even then the spider map was out of date. Love the red wall for the Red Line.
Source: quicklyfailing/Flickr
Historical Map: MAX Light Rail, Portland, Oregon, 2001
Portland’s MAX light rail system as it appeared just after the initial opening of the Red Line. Note that the Red Line doesn’t continue out to Beaverton as it does these days, but turns around just west of downtown. Later, the Yellow Line would turn around here as well, before it was rerouted down the transit mall.
The map itself does a nice job with a relatively simple system. The gracefully curved Willamette River is actually one of the better representations I’ve seen on a MAX map, and the four zones (1 through 3, plus the old Fareless Square) are shown with a minimum of fuss. The split platforms at PGE Park—as it was then—could have been handled better, as the eastbound platform just ends up looking like it’s missing a label. As well as the usual park-and-rides/transit centers/paid parking garages, the legend for this map also helpfully shows the location of food concessions and “Quick Drop” zones (what a lot of other transit systems call “Kiss-and-Ride”, which is just adorable). However, the legend itself might have been better placed at the top left, rather than the bottom right, just to give it a little more room to breathe.
Our rating: As a first effort after becoming a multi-line system, this isn’t half bad. Workmanlike rather than stunning, but it lays the groundwork for the maps that came after it. Three stars.
Source: The ZehnKatzen Times