One last map from Sydney (for now!).
One of the great pleasures of summer in Sydney is catching a ferry across the beautiful harbour to destinations like Taronga Zoo and Manly. This is the current system map, introduced at the same time as the train and light rail maps that I’ve previously featured.
The seven routes, which used to be depicted in a rainbow of colours on previous maps, are now various shades of green, the colour used in the new “F for Ferry” circular symbol seen at the top left of the map. Blue might seem to be a more obvious colour for waterborne craft, but Sydney ferries are renowned for the deep green paint on their hull. Also, blue route lines on a blue (water) background could potentially cause some legibility problems.
Stylistically, the map matches the others in the series perfectly, although – like the light rail map – it lives in a complete mode vacuum, with no connecting services indicated at all. That great big train station right behind the Circular Quay wharves? Doesn’t exist according to this map. Same for all the connecting bus services at many of the other wharves. On a map with this much empty space, leaving out information like this is criminal.
The other thing I really miss from previous versions of this map is an indication of which wharf at Circular Quay each service leaves from. The F1 Manly service always leaves from Wharf 3, the F3 Parramatta River ferry always leaves from Wharf 5, and so on. Again, there’s plenty of room to work with, so I feel that this type of information could be incorporated easily.
One weird thing with the route lines is the way they join onto the main trunk line out of Circular Quay. The F4 Darling Harbour route forms a nice wide curve as it joins, but all the other routes have a much smaller joining curve, almost appearing to join straight on with no curve at all in some instances. It makes the design of the map look a little inconsistent. I’d also like to see a directional arrow on the two loop routes, just to make it clear which order the stops are in.
Finally, this map is a victim of a route designation scheme that works well enough on the main train map, but terribly here. Almost every line has a duplication of labels at the far terminus because the line name and the wharf name are the same. It’s redundant and ugly and creates visual clutter where there is no need. If the F7 Eastern Suburbs route was renamed as F7 Watsons Bay (the final destination) and the F3 Parramatta River line simply became F3 Parramatta, then all the names and lines would match, and only one label for each would be needed.
Our rating: More style than substance. Could easily show more useful information than it does while retaining the current look and feel. Two-and-a-half stars.
Source: Transport NSW Timetables and Maps web page