Month: March 2014

Historical Map: Proposed Cincinnati Rapid Transit System with Subway, c.1912

March 18, 2014
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And here’s where Cincinnati’s long, troubled history with public transit began… This map shows early route plans for a proposed rapid transit system, roughly corresponding to the modern Alternatives Analysis process. By 1917, a modification of Scheme IV as shown here was chosen and put to a public vote to procure $6 million worth of bonds for construction. The vote passed convincingly, but the United States had entered World War I just eleven days previously […]

Fantasy Map: Highways of the Netherlands Diagram by AS Veen

March 17, 2014
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Inspired by (but not derivative of) my own Interstates as Subway Map, here’s a nice diagrammatic take on the “A-Road” highway network of the Netherlands. It’s a relatively simple system, so the one-colour approach used here works quite well. It also illustrates the European tendency for major highways to bypass or loop around a city, rather than putting an Interstate right through the middle of downtown, as so often happens here in the U.S. Design-wise, […]

Fantasy Map: Springfield Transit Authority Map from “The Simpsons”

March 17, 2014
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From the Season 25 episode that premiered last night, “The Winter of His Content”. Looks like the (supposedly abandoned!) system has had a complete overhaul, expansion and rebranding since its previous appearance (second image). Then again, Springfield’s never made very rational decisions about public transit (monorail monorail monorail…) Source: Simpsons Wiki

Photo: A Washington DC Metro strip map that’s just bound to cause confusion…

March 16, 2014
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Here’s an example of an overly designed strip map that’s gone horribly wrong. This photo was taken by Bryan Rodda, who notes that the sign makes it appear that Foggy Bottom-GWU is the name of the main interchange station between the Silver, Blue and Orange Lines in the center of the photo. Anyone who knows the DC Metro system will know that the station in question is actually Rosslyn, but the map makes this horribly […]

Historical Map: Hamburg Hoch- und Untergrundbahn, c. 1912

March 12, 2014
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A beautiful old map showing Hamburg’s Ringbahn and spur lines. I believe that this map is from no later than January 1912, and it may be from even earlier, as the legend denotes that all the routes shown in red (the beginnings of today’s U-Bahn system) are “intended for execution” – that is, planned or under construction, not actually built. Construction of the Ringbahn began in 1906, and the first section between Rathaus and Barmbek […]

Unofficial Future Map: Metro Denver Rapid Transit by Steve Boland

March 10, 2014
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Long-time readers will know that I’m not a huge fan of Denver’s current light rail map (April 2013, 2 stars). And it seems that I’m not the only one, as Steve Boland of calurbanist.com has turned his hand to designing a new map. We’ve featured his excellent Bay Area Rapid Transit map previously (Feb. 2013, 4.5 stars). His Denver map includes all the FasTracks extensions – light rail along I-225 through Aurora, BRT lanes on […]

Photo: Boston Layers

March 7, 2014
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An old Boston T map peeks out from underneath the broken remnants of a recent edition, somewhere along the Orange Line in May 2013. It’s interesting to see that while the two maps occupy the same physical space, their use of it is much different. The older, simpler map fills up its space with bold lines and large type, while the modern map is more geographically based and complex – with the addition of bus […]

Submission – Historical Map: Informational Leaflet, Metro de Santiago, 1975

March 5, 2014
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When moon-monolith sent me the new Santiago Metro map that I featured yesterday, he also sent me this fascinating old map from 1975: the year that the Metro first opened. The map itself probably redefines the term “basic” when it comes to transit maps, with some very coarse route lines and type-written station names. However, I’m more interested in the map as a very early look at the current system. At first glance, it looks like the map […]

New Official Map: Metro de Santiago, Chile, 2014

March 4, 2014
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Here’s a new map for Santiago’s extensive Metro system. I reviewed the previous one back in March of 2012, giving it a pretty generous 3 stars. In a way, this is really an evolution of the previous map, rather than a complete redesign – the routes still sit on top of a stylised street grid of the city, for example – but the execution is much more polished and stylish. The whole city has been […]

New Subway Map-Themed Game in Development: Mini Metro!

March 3, 2014
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This looks extremely promising, especially since development on Third Rail seems to have stalled (no updates on progress since mid-last year). It’s being developed by small New Zealand-based studio, Dinosaur Polo Club (great name and logo!). Here’s the preamble from their website: Mini Metro is a minimalist subway simulation game about designing efficient subway networks. The player must constantly redesign their line layout to meet the needs of a rapidly-growing city. The game, currently available […]