Here’s an unusual use of transit map design principles – a map produced by the Radioactive Waste Campaign in 1988 of the routes used to transport nuclear materials and waste around the United States. This diagrammatic approach actually works very well here – as the legend to the map says:

The origin and destination of these routes are well known. However, because of government secrecy, the exact path of these routes is conjectured.

Without the need to show actual routings along real highways, the map is free to simplify things as needed. I’m not quite sure why the routes still take wobbly paths across the country when straight lines would look so much cleaner. The routes could also use a few more directional arrows to make it explicit which direction materials are travelling in. Some of the longer lines are hard work to follow from one end to the other! The little loop from Sandia to Los Alamos in New Mexico is pretty niftily done, and the color scheme is suitably dramatic – the strident magenta background really helps the map pop.

Our rating: Transit map as anti-nuclear infographic! Three stars.

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection