A great old map promoting the use of the H&M tubes (now known as PATH) for rapid access to Manhattan and beyond (Ebbets Field, Coney Island!). Although undated at the original source of the map, it’s pretty easy to narrow it down to sometime between 1950 and 1953 due to the presence of the 3rd Avenue Elevated in Manhattan. As shown, it no longer goes to South Ferry (closed 1950), but still continues to City […]
“The ‘T’: One of Boston’s Last Great Bargains” proclaims this neat little pop-arty pocket map cover. Five of the six colours used in the design make sense (representing the four lines of the “T” plus purple for commuter rail), but what’s the yellow for? Making up the numbers in the days before the Silver Line, it seems. EDIT: My readers are awesome! Thanks to those who have pointed out that yellow was (and still kind of […]
Sent my way by long-time correspondent, Kyril Negoda. I’m not entirely sure of the vintage of this, as the archive it resides in covers the entire period from 1980–2000, and none of the images have dates attached to them. There’s definitely an early 1980s vibe to it, though – mainly from the tightly kerned Futura Bold heading at the top. I’ve seen transit map-styled airline maps before (here and here, for example), but this one […]
Submitted by peopleneedaplacetogo, who says: This, from 1979, is the first published version of the now-familiar Michael Hertz Associates-designed New York Subway map, which replaced the (in)famous diagrammatic Vignelli map of the early 1970s. While most of the design decisions are still reflected in the subway map today, it’s interesting to see what’s changed over the intervening 35 years. The 1979 map is somewhat less geographically distorted, the distinction between express and local services is […]
Submitted by the creator, who says: This map I created presents the NSW rural rail passenger network at its maximum extent in the CityRail style. The stations and lines that no longer provide passenger service (or have been disused completely) are greyed out – with the vast majority of stations and lines now falling into this category. Transit Maps says: This is great work, simultaneously showing NSW’s rail network as it currently exists (solid colours, […]
Hi Cam, Adam from the Melbourne Tram Museum here. Would love to get your thoughts on this! This is my first map done from scratch. We’ve recently launched our special exhibition named Tramway Anzacs, which tells the story of the 538 tramway employees who volunteered for military service in World War 1. As well as sharing their fascinating stories (including a guy who went from being a Cable Tram Gripman at Port Melbourne depot to fighting alongside Lawrence of […]
Part of a promotional brochure discovered by Reddit user Globalwrath while cleaning his grandmother’s estate, here’s a fascinating look at the early pre-construction history of Metrorail. Much of the actual current system is represented fairly well as the “Authorized Basic System” (thin black lines) and “Adopted Regional System” (thick black lines) with at-grade sections represented by pink lines instead. Station names are obviously tentative (Pooks Hill? Weapons Plant?), but the alignments are very familiar. Of perhaps more […]
Great photo of a handsome rectilinear diagram of island-wide bus services in Iceland from back in 2005. The big blue blobs in the middle aren’t lakes, they’re glaciers. Reykjavik’s importance as the main transportation hub is well illustrated. Source: Arnþór Snær/Flickr
Sent my way by Dennis, who says: Today’s offering is spurred by news of a new Muni map showing frequency of service. Here’s the one I created for personal amusement in 1982. As you can see, the technology was a bit more primitive: Rapidograph technical pens, a calligraphy pen, and crepe-paper tape on tracing paper. The rest of the page (of a visitors guide I made for friends) was typewritten. Transit Maps says: Nice and simple – […]
A look at another stalled attempt to get rapid transit up and running in Seattle, this time from 1970. A lot of the proposed alignments look very familiar, but they are often constrained by Seattle’s difficult geography. I see that they were thinking of running rapid transit over the I-90 floating bridge – quite the engineering feat even now, let alone over 40 years ago. Even now, it’ll be the first light rail track travelling […]
