Fantasy Map: Near-Future Boston Map (in Toronto) for “The Handmaid’s Tale”

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Fantasy Maps

Yet another variant of the new Boston MBTA rapid transit map for televisual purposes, after this recent one from The Simpsons, and this bizarre repurposing from CSI: Cyber.

This one was spotted at Bay station in Toronto, and is for the upcoming Hulu original TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Starring Elisabeth Moss and Joseph Fiennes, it’s based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel. Set in a frighteningly plausible dystopian near-future, the series is sure to be a barrel of laughs. Think Children of Men crossed with V for Vendetta… happy times!

The map itself takes the distinctively-shaped route lines of the current MBTA map and places them upon a ridiculously accurate geographical background – including just about every lake, river and creek in the greater Boston area. Edits to the routes themselves are minor: the commuter rail lines have been changed from purple to yellow, and the Silver Line is now black, and that’s about it. Oh, and no stations have labels. Numbers are used to denote both routes and the shaded Hunger Games-style districts on the map, which isn’t confusing at all. I will note that the green “2″ bullet matches the actual line designation and colour found at Bay station, possibly (hopefully) intentionally.

The giant subway icon, number and logo/shield (what I presume is the seal of the Republic of Gilead in the show) really look like they’re just filling in the leftover empty space, though the logo is quite nice.

Finally, I have no idea how they’re going to pass this station off as being in Boston (even a near-future one), when those tiles just scream Toronto!

Source: r/toronto on Reddit

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