All posts filed under: Official Maps

Official Map: Boston MBTA Government Center Station Closure Bypass

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Submitted by Lawrence, who says: As you’ve probably heard, the MBTA is about to close Government Center at the end of service tomorrow for a 2 year reconstruction. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the detour maps the T created and have put in stations. To me (a self-confessed transit geek), they seem adequate, but all of my friends find them very confusing. This leads to a broader question: how should transit agencies map […]

Official/Future Map: Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Strip Map (now with added Green Line!)

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Future Maps, Official Maps

Submitted by Nathan Bakken, who says: Hi, I am an Urban Studies major at UMN, and while riding the Blue line today I noticed the new transit map for our light rail system. thought i would share. Transit Maps says: Looks like the Twin Cities’ Metro Transit is gearing up for the opening of the new Green Line light rail nice and early! The line – which will link the downtown areas of Minneapolis and […]

Photo: A Washington DC Metro strip map that’s just bound to cause confusion…

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Here’s an example of an overly designed strip map that’s gone horribly wrong. This photo was taken by Bryan Rodda, who notes that the sign makes it appear that Foggy Bottom-GWU is the name of the main interchange station between the Silver, Blue and Orange Lines in the center of the photo. Anyone who knows the DC Metro system will know that the station in question is actually Rosslyn, but the map makes this horribly […]

New Official Map: Metro de Santiago, Chile, 2014

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Here’s a new map for Santiago’s extensive Metro system. I reviewed the previous one back in March of 2012, giving it a pretty generous 3 stars. In a way, this is really an evolution of the previous map, rather than a complete redesign – the routes still sit on top of a stylised street grid of the city, for example – but the execution is much more polished and stylish. The whole city has been […]

Official Map: Integrated Transit of Südtirol (Alto Adige), Italy

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Sent my way by a reader known only as “mmmaps”, here’s a map of the transit system of the northern autonomous Italian province of Südtirol (South Tyrol in English, or Alto Adige in Italian). The system is mainly made up of buses (dark blue), but there’s also a backbone of rail services between the major cities (shown in light blue) and aerial cable-cars as well. While the restrained colour palette (just blues and greys) looks quite […]

Official Map: Bus Network of Brownsville, Texas

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

A strong entry into the Transit Maps Hall of Shame from Brownsville, Texas, with this map that depicts the Brownsville Urban System (or “BUS” — I see what they did there). Where to start with this awfulness? Probably with the graduated blue background that causes visual dissonance (that shimmering edge when colours clash horribly) with just about everything else on the map, especially the red street name labels! It also makes the underlying grey road network […]

Official Maps: Transportation at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

A few requests for these very topical maps, so here goes! The XXII Winter Games are now in full swing, but how do spectators get around? The Games are divided into two very distinct zones: the Olympic Park down by the Black Sea in Sochi itself for all the indoor sports; and the Mountain Zone, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) up into the Caucasus Mountains, where all the sports that actually require snow are held. […]

Official Map: Brussels Integrated Transit Map

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

One of the most requested maps so far — thanks to thecitygeek, bjorkborg, Mladen Stilinovic and a couple of anonymous readers for sending this my way! According to my correspondents, Brussels has recently switched from a geographical transit map to this new diagrammatic map. As you can see by comparing the two images of the centre of the city above, a lot of streamlining and simplification has taken place. The first thing that strikes me is […]

Submission – Official Historical Map: MBTA Map in Chinese, c. 1985

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps, Official Maps

Submitted by Randy Wong, who says: The MBTA map in Chinese characters. These used to be posted at the Orange Line Chinatown T-stop, and also at a few of the other lines that intersected/were near Chinese speakers. There are lots of Chinese who live near Malden, Oak Grove, Chinatown, Forest Hills, Quincy, and Quincy Center T-stops, though I don’t recall which stops actually had Chinese T maps. Transit Maps says: Nice localisation of the classic […]