Submission – Official Map: Metro de Medellin, Colombia, 2014

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Submitted by Daniel Echeverri, who says:

Medellin (Colombia) transit map. Downloaded from the official website of Metro de Medellin. It shows Metro Lines, Articulated Buses lines (Metroplus) and Aerial Tram lines (Metro Cable)

Transit Maps says:

Medellin’s transit system is fascinating because it’s one of the first places in the world to implement aerial gondolas as part of a mass transit system. Other cities may have gondolas and aerial trams, but they’re almost always deployed as tourist attraction, like London’s Emirates Air Line. Medellin’s CableMetro reaches up to areas clinging to the sides of the steep valley that the city lies in that are unreachable by traditional forms of transit, linking seamlessly to the main Metro lines at the bottom of the cables.

However, the map’s not anywhere as interesting as the system. It looks like it draws its inspiration from the Los Angeles Metro map – it has a very similar aesthetic and also uses DIN as its primary font – but it’s nowhere near as well executed as that map, having a whole host of technical issues.

There’s an inexplicable kink in the “K” MetroCable line, while the “L” line just heads off at its own unique angle. Similarly, the “1” bus route has an awful kink as it heads north out of the Industriales interchange station that could easily have been avoided with a little thought (making the river slightly wider, perhaps?).

The “1” and “2” bus lines are drawn terribly, with odd gaps between them when they run parallel to each other, and as they go around corners together. Line 2 has “stops” – as opposed to “stations” – indicated by hash marks along part of its route: they’re both way too big and extremely ugly. In contrast, the circular station markers are so small as to almost be invisible. The marker for San Pedro station has a red outline to indicate that it’s currently closed: this is almost impossible to make out.

Finally, the lines under construction are very poorly drawn, with the dashed lines doubling over each other as the routes go around corners. It’s difficult to tell where the Tranvia Ayacucho (a new streetcar/tram service) ends and the two new MetroCable lines begin, and there’s a whole new set of kinks and weird angles here as well.

Our rating: A fascinating transit system, let down by an extremely average and technically deficient map. Could be so much more. One-and-a-half stars.

Source: Official Metro de Medellin website – link no longer active

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