This is simply gorgeous. The fact that the RER terminates at Nation dates this map from between 1969 (when the RATP first purchased the line from the SNCF) and 1977 (when the line was extended through Paris and became the RER “A” line we know today). The original post on Flickr does not note where this map is (or was) located. Source: lionelofparis/Flickr
Yes, another post about the Paris Métro. I’d stop doing it if I stopped finding really interesting maps! This one is from way back in 1913, and is purportedly the first Métro map to use different colours for each of the lines and the first one to have strip plans for each of them as well. Another thing to note is that this is a mere thirteen years after the Métro opened – and there’s […]
Released by the MTA just eight days after 9/11, this map shows how radically lower Manhattan service was affected. Source: 2nd Ave Sagas website
Reader Jon Sivell sent me this awesome photo of an out-of-date “A” map, still in situ at Far Rockaway/Mott Ave station, the last stop at the very bottom right of this map. It dates from prior to 2003, as it shows a shuttle bus from Howard Beach/JFK Airport, not the AirTrain. Anyone have anything else that can pin the date down a little better? Edit: With the help of some eagle-eyed readers, we’ve narrowed this […]
Thanks to Chris Helenius for bringing this amazing map by Richard Saul Wurman (founder of the TED Conference amongst other things) to my attention. In the course of research for this post, I also discovered that Mr. Wurman was responsible for these beautiful maps of Philadelphia from the book Man-Made Philadelphia: still the most-visited post on Transit Maps by far. But onto the map itself. Firstly, this is not a map of the Tokyo subway, as […]
From the back of a Gregory’s Street Directory by the look of things, and very much in their house style. I’m not sure this map is actually helping things that much: Sydney’s labyrinthine network of streets is partially to blame, but the flow of arrows and lines could also be much clearer. The strange decision to make the background black for the second half of the suburb list (to the right of the map) has […]
Here’s another amazing historical planning map, this time from Boston in 1945. Visually, it looks quite similar to this map, but shows an amazing array of planned extensions to the existing system. Some of them were built soon after this map was drawn up:the Revere (Blue Line) extension to Wonderland was essentially complete by 1952, although this map shows the line heading even further north. Others took much, much longer: the (Red Line) to Quincy […]
Transit maps today are created on computer, and printed with advanced technology. We think nothing of using many different colours, adding a drop shadow behind type, adding a gradient to the background, transparency effects – all things that state-of-the-art design software makes perhaps a little too easy. As a contrast to these glitzy new-fangled maps, I present an antidote: a simply stunning, beautiful and ever-so-French map of the Paris Metro from 1956. It’s printed with […]
After all the diagrammatic maps we’ve featured so far, it’s nice to showcase something completely different – check out this awesome painted birds-eye view of PATH services between New Jersey and Manhattan from 1979. It also shows other rail services in New Jersey snaking off into the far distance, and even Lady Liberty standing guard over New York and the cutest little Staten Island ferry you ever did see. Have we been there? Yes, but […]
This map has to be from before 1980, as that’s the year that Braintree station opened. Certainly has a nice 1970s feel to it. I love how someone has added in the more recent stations with a pen, even (somewhat) attempting to maintain the aesthetics of the map. Source: @acosmos/Twitter
