Photo: Passeggiando in Valcamonica
Giant map of regional rail in Lombardy on the floor of Milan’s Repubblica station. Source: beriapaolo/Flickr
Month: June 2014
Official Map: TRANSPO Bus System, South Bend, Indiana
Suggested by Jeff Bridgman. This is probably a good example of how not to make a black-and-white map. They only get away with it at all because the system is so simple – there’s only 17 or 18 routes, and they have hardly any overlap because of the radial “hub and spoke” nature of the network. Yes, you can actually work out where the buses go, but it’s all just a bit dismal. There’s quite […]
Adorable Hand-Drawn Seoul Metro Map
Love it. Source: Ra_roar/Flickr
Photo: Istanbul Metro Station Sign
Well, I guess that’s one place to put your map. It’s nice and visible from both platforms, at least! Source: SpirosK photography/Flickr
Official Map: MARC Commuter Rail Map, 2014
Ugh. A terrible JPG of a decidedly ugly map. There’s so much to dislike about this: the blocky label type; the tiny, indecipherable symbols used for the Metro and light rail in Baltimore and the insultingly poor renditions of the logos of connecting services (WMATA, Amtrak and VRE); the ridiculously ornate and garishly coloured compass rose; the soft “glow” effect applied to the MARC routes… the list goes on. Not to mention the mistakes, like […]
Official Map: Budapest Metro and Suburban Rail, 2014
With the recent opening of Budapest’s Metro Line 4, there’s been a rethink behind the city’s transit map. The previous version (July 2012, 2.5 stars) tried to show everything – Metro, suburban rail, regional rail, tram and key bus routes – on one map, but it was all a bit of a mess. With so many thin, colour-coded lines (using a strangely limited palette), things became very difficult to understand. Hence this new approach, where […]
Unofficial Map: “MetroMan” Beijing Subway Map by Lyt
Submitted by Xuan, who says: Hey Cameron, I am wondering if you’d be interested in reviewing this unofficial subway map of my hometown – Beijing. The author is Lyt, aka “lighthunter”. I think his version is 100,000 times better than the official map. I think he deserves an ovation. Although China now has the longest subway mileage in the world, most Chinese transit maps are hideous. That’s why I figure this map could be a […]
Illustration: Southern Rail’s “Southern Adventure” Ad Campaign by Rod Hunt
Extremely nifty isometric “pixel art” illustration showing all the family-friendly adventures that can be had on England’s Southern Rail network. Probably not much use as an actual map, but it does name/highlight a lot of the useful stations and the activities that can be had in the region. A lot of fun to be had poring over the detailed illustration, and I love the pencilled rough for comparison. The artist, Rod Hunt, is perhaps best […]
Historical Map: PATCO Hi-Speed Line (Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey), 1983
An odd little map from the Fall/Winter 1978 PATCO timetable brochure. While the Hi-Speed line itself is nicely shown in a lovely strong red, the absolute tangle of highways shown in New Jersey is somewhat bewildering, and really not that helpful. The other bit of strangeness is the way that the map shows highways and towns all the way out to the Atlantic coast – some 45 miles past Lindenwold, the easternmost PATCO station. The […]
Photo: Hard Rock Cafe – New York Subway Map Guitar Pin
As much as I hate to admit it, this is actually pretty darn awesome. With its 45-degree angles, it’s definitely channelling the Vignelli diagram far more than the squiggly official map. Source: jeffliebig/Flickr