America’s latest modern streetcar line opens today (May 6th, 2016) in Kansas City, Missouri, running approximately two miles north from Union Station to the River Market district. To go with the new system, there’s also this spiffy new map, which will be mounted at stops along the route, as seen in this great photo taken by Edward Russell. Overall, I like it a lot: it’s clean and simple with just enough detail for users to […]
May the Fourth be with you, and all that. Of course there’s a Star Wars-related subway map out there. This map was created by Invasione Creativa, an advertising agency in Milan, as guerrilla marketing for Disney last year. It’s a pretty simple concept, basically replacing stations in the official Milan Metro map (March 2012, 3.5 stars) with planets from that galaxy far, far away. Jakku takes centre stage, replacing Milan’s Garibaldi FS station. (As a side […]
Readers of my Transit Maps blog would know that I was extremely disappointed with the recent Montréal Métro map redesign (see the review here), which took a truly unique, iconic design and replaced it with a very ordinary octolinear imitation of itself. So I've taken it upon myself to redraw the map as I think it should look: restoring some elements of the previous maps, simplifying and clarifying the network, and adding some new touches all of my own.
Submitted by Bob Hay, who says: Here’s a photo I took on the Baltimore Metro. It’s a glass partition with system map showing connections to Light Rail and MARC as well as the Metro subway line. I don’t recall ever seeing a map displayed on glass like this. (Sorry the photo isn’t clearer, but my stop was approaching.) Transit Maps says: While maps on glass partitions are unusual, they’re not unique to Baltimore. Off the […]
Although this crafty map of the MBTA rapid transit system is very obviously home-made, it has some clever ideas for helping visually impaired riders. Each route line is constructed with different materials, each with their own texture, which enables quick identification of lines by touch. Stations are marked with beads, and there are Braille labels as well, although the placement of some of them could be better. The photo was taken at a disabilities conference […]
A hand-coloured and lettered (in what looks like colour pencil!) map showing the various streetcar, interurban trains and bus routes in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia in 1953 – just five years before the interurban trains ceased operations. The north pointer on this map is one of the loveliest I have seen. See also: this charming illustrated transit map of Vancouver from 1930. Source: City of Vancouver Archives/Flickr
Submitted by Sam, who says: Hey! For my Graphic Design Thesis, I created a Graphics Standard Update proposal for SEPTA. This includes a System Map (attached), a line map, and various other identity pieces. The most challenging part of the project was creating a Transit map that organized the current information in a way that felt unique to Philadelphia, and increased readability. Transit Maps says: A bold and radical departure from the status quo from […]
Denver’s rapidly-expanding rail network took another step forward today with the opening of the new commuter rail service out to Denver International Airport – the “train to the plane”, as they (a little unoriginally) call it. However, for those – like me! – hoping for a new map to celebrate the new service, you’re in for a disappointment, as the latest offering is just a minimally-modified version of the previous map (June 2016, 1.5 stars). […]
Not the world’s most original ad concept, but at least it’s executed nicely, with those distinctively Parisian route line colours used to good effect against the black background. Source: Clemence de Moel/Flickr – link no longer active
A nice and friendly-looking schematic bus map from the city of Sundsvall in Västernorrland County, Sweden. The filename of the map’s PDF actually refers to it as a tunnelbanekarta – basically, (in the style of) a subway map – which has led to the map being posted to reddit in the belief that it’s an actual subway/metro map of the city. I would have thought the giant “BUSS NAVET” (bus hub) circle in the centre of the […]
