Month: July 2015

Submission – Houston METRORail Future System Plan

July 15, 2015
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Submitted by Caden, who just enigmatically comments, “Houston: sigh” Transit Maps says: Caden’s sigh took me a little while to interpret (is he in love?), but I’m going to take a guess that he’s actually referencing some grand rapid transit plans – in a very car-centric city – that are now beginning to fade away. While the Red, (Green) East End and (Purple) Southeast lines are now operational, funding for the Blue University Line has completely […]

Reader Question: What’s a Good Size to Draw a Transit Map?

July 14, 2015
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Reader Question: I dabble a bit in designing fictional transit maps,but I’ve always wondered about these two questions (if I may). 1) What is a standard and/or good canvas size when drawing a map? 2) When drawing a map where you want to indicate multimodality, but give priority to one mode (say, a metro map showing light rail or commuter connections), how is that best achieved? Is it preferable to use icons at stations or […]

GIF – The Longest Possible New York Subway Ride?

July 11, 2015
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Unofficial Maps, Visualizations
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The New York Subway is famous for having a flat fare for any ride within the system – be it for just a couple of stops, or an epic end-to-end trek. So long as you don’t pass through a fare gate, you can pretty much go anywhere! WNYC is having fun with that fare structure to find the longest possible ride you can take without reusing a section of track. Their initial record – as […]

Fantasy Map: St. Jacques Metro Map by “Green Kitten”

July 10, 2015
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Fantasy Maps
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Um, wow? An incredibly detailed transit network for the fictional metropolis of “St. Jacques” drawn and lettered entirely by hand on what looks like 12 sheets of A4 paper.  Obviously taking its design and geography cues from London – the symbology used is almost identical to the Tube Map, it has a river that crosses from east to west just south of the city centre, an airport to the southwest and a pretty good analog for the […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: St. Petersburg Metro, Russia by “Kilo”

July 10, 2015
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Submitted by the author, who says: So, for a high school art project, I decided to make a system map for the St. Petersburg Metro. I spent about a half-month studying the system and the stations, getting some Russian friends to translate the station names, and prototyping the pipes in Inkscape (didn’t have Illustrator), eventually coming up with this design. Now that I’m in college and in the process of trying to apply for a […]

Historical Map: New York “New Subway Routes” Map, 1967

July 9, 2015
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Historical Maps
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the-nycta-project: “New Subway Routes” Map Possibly 1967? Yes, this is the 1967 “New Subway Routes” map produced by the New York Transit Authority, designer unknown. The diagram was produced to show only the eight routes that had been changed with the opening of the tunnel under Chrystie Street. It’s an interesting piece because it was produced some three years before even the first draft Unimark/Massimo Vignelli diagram, but has seemingly been influenced by his approach to […]

GIF – Expansion of the Shanghai Metro, 1994-2014

July 6, 2015
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Wow. From nothing in 1993 to 14 lines, 338 stations and 548km (341 miles) of track – the longest rapid transit system by route length in the world – in 2015. A mere 8 million people use the system on an average weekday. Of interest is the massive expansion in the years leading up to the 2010 Shanghai Wold Expo. See also this 1939 tram and trolleybus map of Shanghai’s International Settlement.  Source: Wikimedia Commons/user: […]

Reader Question: Why Show the “Jog” in the DC Metro’s Red Line?

July 6, 2015
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My Transit Maps, Questions
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Question from lukasmaps: On your DC Metro Map redesign, why do you show the little “jog” on the red line between Van Ness-UDC and Tenlyytown-AU? No offense to your excellent work, but it ruins the visual clarity shown on the rest of the map and frankly, gets on my nerves. Again, no offense to this otherwise beautiful map. Answer: This is a fantastic question and one that I can use to illustrate how local knowledge […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: MARC Commuter Rail Network by Peter Dovak

July 5, 2015
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Submitted by the prolific Peter, who says: Like you, I was disappointed with the official MARC system map, but recently I stumbled on a concept while working on another project, so I had a go at turning it into a standalone map. Apologies for spamming your submissions box, but I really like how it turned out and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts! Transit Maps says: Peter, you can spam my submissions box all […]

Submission – West Coast Electric Highway Map

July 3, 2015
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Submitted by “Sounder Bruce”, who says: A quasi-transit map that shows electric vehicle charging stations in Washington and Oregon, centered around the Interstate 5 corridor. Transit Maps says: I really like the idea behind this map – a simplified road map much in the vein of many of my own mapping projects – but I feel like the execution lets the concept down a little.  Because of the stylised “transit map” format, the distances between […]