Not a “traditional” transit map, but it does show an important transportation network in a simplified strip map form, so that’s good enough for me! This absolutely gorgeous two-colour map straightens out all the kinks in the eponymous canal, presenting it as a dead straight line from one end to the other. The variable scale is indicated by the mile markers on either side of the map: the less interesting parts of the canal get […]
I’m ever so slightly in love with this simple little map showing proposed rapid transit lines in San Francisco. There’s some lovely texture for the parkland, a nice vignetted effect for the coastline, and some great mid-century typography as well – all rather delightful! There’s a great information hierarchy as well, with buses being thin light blue lines, then trolley buses slightly thicker brown lines. Cable cars are shown by thin black lines that still […]
Sent my way by Kyril Negoda are these two rather delightful little diagrams of trolleybus and tram services in Kaliningrad in 1990. This was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, so Kaliningrad Oblast was still physically connected to the rest of the USSR, rather than being an exclave like it is today. Stylistically, the diagrams are very similar and have a pleasant, slightly childlike feeling to them. This is aided by […]
I've long admired this fascinating map of the railway network in and around East Berlin, produced at the tail end of the Cold War in 1989. As is usual, I decided to redraw it in Adobe Illustrator to see what makes it tick.
Here’s a fantastic (if slightly idealised) view of the then still-under-construction State Street Subway from a c.1940 postcard. This view looks northward along State Street from Adams, and shows the Monroe-Adams mezzanine. Note the direct access from the mezzanine level to the basement level of businesses on either side of State Street – now long since closed. Text on the reverse side of the postcard reads: Cut-away view of Chicago’s subway in the Central Business District. […]
What appears at first glance to be a street map of Philadelphia in the early 20th century is actually not what it seems. All this map depicts is streetcar track and mainline railroads (in traditional ticked lines), showing how incredibly dense the streetcar network was at the time, especially downtown. Interestingly, a lot of the system appears to be single-track only. Nowadays, only a few vestigial trolley lines recall the days when streetcars reigned supreme […]
Passers-by looking at a pre-H.C. Beck Underground map outside Strand station in 1937. At a glance, it looks like the Fred Stingemore map, but expanded to show the whole system (the pocket card only showed central London). Parkland also seems to have been added – the large dark blotches dotted all around the map. Source: Londonist.com
In the late 1960s, Chicago actually seriously considered knocking down the elevated parts of the “L” and replacing it all with a modern subway network. The plan originally called for multiple lines, but these got whittled down over the years for a variety of reasons – lack of funding being one of the major ones. By 1977, all that remained on the table was the Franklin Street Subway, shown in red in the handsome illustrated […]
Submitted by thesandpeople100, who says: Cutaway diagram of the Paris Metro’s Opera station. I came across this working on a project for a hypothetical addition to Palais Garnier but couldn’t find any information on its origin. Any ideas? Transit Maps says: A reverse image search on Google found the answer to this pretty quickly: this beautiful cutaway appeared in the July 1910 issue of Popular Mechanics. Unfortunately, this month isn’t available in Google Books’ archive of […]
A lovely old map showing Mexico City’s extensive tram network in 1910. Solid red lines are electric street-running trams, ticked red lines are electric trams on exclusive right-of-way, while green lines are humble mule-pulled trams… of which there are still quite a number. In fact, mule-pulled trams continued to be used in Mexico City up until the 1930s. Electric substations, mule stables, carbarns and other company properties are also highlighted on the map. Streetcars hung […]
