Month: June 2016

Submission – Historical Map: BMT Nassau Street Line by Renzo Picasso, c.1930 (?)

June 29, 2016
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Submitted by Casira Copes, who says: This is an image done by Renzo Picasso, the late Italian engineer and architect. He specialized in urban design and transit drawings, which I thought might be interesting for your blog! I’m currently working at the Archivio Renzo Picasso in Genoa, Italy where our goal is to expose his work to more people. He was not very well-known in his lifetime, but his drawings are pretty fascinating! He did […]

Photo – Official Map: Strip Map for the Gold Coast Light Rail, Queensland, Australia

June 29, 2016
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Here’s a rare example of an illustrated strip map, used above the doors on the Gold Coast’s G:Link light rail vehicles in Australia. Despite my self-professed preference for clean, minimalist, ordered design, I actually love this map to bits. Why? Because “sense of place” and community are the absolute winners here. The two-colour illustration style is charming and whimsical, while the instantly recognisable landmarks link the whole coast together from north to south. Most importantly, people […]

Historical Maps: Prague Metro Book, 1978

June 28, 2016
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After I posted about this fantastic 1978 book celebrating the Moscow Metro, reader Martin Vrba let me know that he had a very similar contemporaneous book about Prague’s Metro, and was kind enough to send along some photos. Of particular interest is the first map, which shows projected extensions to the 1978 system (shown as solid lines) all the way up to 1990. There’s a few differences, but it’s basically very similar to the system […]

Found: London Underground Map Tile

June 24, 2016
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Look what I just found while going through some dusty old boxes! I picked this lovely Tube Map bathroom tile up at the London Transport Museum in 2004, and brought it with me when I moved to the U.S. – where it has unfortunately remained in its box ever since.  As best I can tell, it was made by artist Tony Davis around 2001, and was part of a set of six tiles that covered most […]

Future Fantasy Map: Consolidated Bay Area Rapid Transit, 2050 by Adam Susaneck

June 22, 2016
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Here at Transit Maps, we see quite a few unified Bay Area maps. It seems that that the fractured nature of all the different transit agencies in the area seems to frustrate quite a few people, which drives them to try and make something better. The latest is this effort by Adam Susaneck, showing what things could look like in 2050 or so in a perfect world.  It’s impeccably researched – head on over to […]

Historical Maps: Australian Interstate Passenger Rail Schematics, November 1983

June 21, 2016
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Here’s a couple of neat timetable/route diagrams for Interstate passenger rail services in Australia back in 1983. The first shows westbound services from Sydney, the other shows the corresponding return journeys. Differing rail gauges and immense distances have always made interstate rail travel a difficult prospect in Australia, hence the paucity of services even 30-odd years ago (only three Sydney-Melbourne trains a day and just one daily Sydney-Brisbane service). Source: Image 1 and Image 2 […]

Submission – “Transit Map” Elevator Service Diagram, Tokyo, Japan

June 18, 2016
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Submitted by Adam, who says: The “transit”-style elevator map of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. The tower consists of two sub-towers, with elevator “lines” ABC serving one tower, and DEFG serving the other. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo–I took this offhandedly without thinking of submitting it.  Transit Maps says: This is totally awesome, Adam! Elevators that only service certain ranges of floors in large office buildings aren’t that unusual, but I’ve never […]

Submission: Unofficial Map – Routes of the Great Western Railway by Xsanda

June 17, 2016
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Submitted by the map’s creator, who says: This is a route map of the GWR network. It’s my first time creating a transit map with Illustrator, so I’m open to any feedback! Transit Maps says: This is a pretty good first effort! In a way, this is a throwback to old railway maps, in that it shows where the trains travel, but not how they do so – individual routes aren’t indicated, so it’s impossible […]

Historical Map: Washington, DC Streetcar Trackage as of August 1958

June 16, 2016
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A handsome hand-drawn map of the entire D.C. Transit streetcar network from August 1958, less than four years before the system closed entirely. The map was drawn by Charles Wagner, who was an active member of the Washington, DC chapter of the Electric Railway Historical Society in the 1950s, an august body that still exists to this day. Source: Discover DC History archive (link no longer active)

Video: New “Johnston100″ Typeface Family by Monotype

June 14, 2016
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For Johnston Sans’ 100th birthday, TfL has commissioned Monotype to redraw the typeface, bringing the design back closer to its original roots in many respects. Going forward, it will be this cut that will be used on all new TfL signage, maps and collateral. The redraw also introduces two new weights – Thin and Hairline – that I remain unconvinced by. I suspect they’ve been added for online usage and advertising purposes, but they just […]