Submitted by Lukas, who says:
Hi, wanted to send you the new official map of Maryland’s MARC commuter rail system, as seen on the Maryland MTA website. I think it is a great improvement over the old system map. The map very visibly derives its thick lines and transfer station dots from the Washington DC Metro map, which I think it manages to pull off well. However, there are a few things I want to criticize about it, one being that the Union Station dots only partially fall within the shaded District of Columbia. Another is that, at first glance, New Carrollton, Silver Spring, and Riverdale all look like they are the same station. Finally, the Baltimore Metro and LRT lines are shown in full, but the DC Metro lines are only referenced as small Metro logos next to stations. Presumably, this is because MTA operates the Baltimore rapid transit system but not Washington’s. What do you think of the map?
Transit Maps says:
Well, it’s certainly a vast improvement over the previous official map (June 2014, 1 star), though perhaps not quite as good as the late Peter Dovak’s excellent unofficial version (July 2015, 4 stars).
As Lukas says, the treatment of the Silver Spring, Riverdale and New Carrollton stations is unfortunate – they’re on three different lines with some distance between them in real life, so to imply they’re adjacent to each other is disingenuous to say the least. Even staggering Riverdale to sit a little lower than the other two stations would break them up a bit better.
I’m not really enamoured of the diagonal labels for the stations, but at least it’s handled consistently and probably helps in creating that WMATA Metro Map feeling that Lukas mentions. However, I think the map could definitely lose some of the smaller locality labels scattered around. Annapolis, for instance, is some 20 miles by road to the nearest MARC station, while Reston and McLean are in Virginia and not really relevant to this Maryland-based network.
The legend is comprehensive and easy to read, and I especially appreciate the indication of when each line runs – weekday peak service only on the Camden and Brunswick lines!
Our rating: Bright, chunky and cheerful. Definitely a huge step up in quality from the previous map! Three stars.
UPDATE: It’s just been pointed out to me that Harpers Ferry on the Brunswick Line should be located on the opposite bank of the Potomac, which is a pretty big error. Hoping that gets fixed soon!
Source: MTA website (PDF link)
I think it’s worth noting that since this review they have made some pretty good improvements to the map:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/mta-website-staging/mta-website-staging/files/System%20Maps/MARC_System_Map_09_2018.pdf
Notable differences:
-All Station Labels are Horizontal
-Silver Spring, Riverdale, and New Carrollton are staggered so their labels work better and they don’t look so close to each other.
-Harper’s Ferry is in the correct state.
-After Union Station the three lines end in a bulb with a B, C, or P (Brunswick, Camden, Penn) for easier identification.
-The Metro Icons have colored stripes under them representing which lines you transfer to, though this is tough for colorblind users like myself, but still an improvement over the version on this website.
-The alignment of Baltimore’s light rail and metro have been improved to be more geographically accurate (and visually pleasing). It also shows that Penn Station is on a separate branch instead of on the trunk
-There is now a rather large info box detailing a walking shortcut to get to the light rail trunk from Penn station if you don’t want to wait for the half-hourly Penn-Camden shuttle
-Baltimore is shaped more like Baltimore
-The County and city names floating around the map have been eliminated.
I think overall these improvements are great and really help to refine the map.