Having touched briefly on the Brussels map with this previous post, I thought it was time to take a proper look at the current official map.

Have we been there? Yes, back in 2003, but I walked pretty much everywhere and didn’t use the Metro/tram system. I did catch trains from Brussels to other cities in Belgium, however.

What we like: The treatment of the Metro part of the system is excellent, with a nice solid 90-degree angle design really accentuating the orbital nature of lines 2 and 6. Strong, yet interesting, choices for the route lines seem to be aimed at maximising contrast between adjacent lines: the lines are paired in colours that are opposite each other on a colour wheel (blue/orange and purple/yellow).

The map still looks nice and clean despite the bilingual French/Dutch labelling required for many stations.

What we don’t like: The map is less impressive when it comes to some of the design choices made for the tram network – the yellow used for line 7 is so pale that it needs to be outlined in grey, which then makes that line look visually too strong. Line 7’s treatment at terminus stations is also inconsistent with all the other lines: its terminus dot sits above the station marker like the others, but its route line lies underneath the station.

An inconsistent approach to naming stations for the tram routes: most of the stations that don’t interact with the Metro system remain nameless, except for a few on the eastern part of Line 7… why are these stations different to the others?

The pastel striped main rail lines take quite a bit of  getting used to: the effect does reduce their importance in the information hierarchy, but it all just looks a little 1980s after a while. 

Our rating: If it was stripped back to show just the Metro, this would be a wonderfully strong map. As it is, each subsequent mode reduces the visual focus of the map and ends up as a slightly unsatisfying final product. Stilll very competently done, however. Three stars.

Source: Official STIB website