All posts filed under: Official Maps

Official Map: Metro de Santiago, Chile, 2012

March 6, 2012
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Here’s another example of a metro map overlaid on a city’s street grid – this time from Santiago, Chile. This system has some marvellous innovations, with a bike sharing program (BiciMetro) and libraries (BiblioMetro) integrated at many stations, but the map somewhat fails to live up to those modern, forward-thinking ideas. Have we been there? No. What we like: Clean layout, with large easy-to-read (if not particularly stylish) text. The roads are given the right […]

Official Map: Los Angeles Metro Bus and Rail Services

February 23, 2012
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I really, really don’t know what to think about this map. On one hand, it looks amazing, with a solid and well applied design theme. On the other, it’s so rich with information (with around 200 Metro-run routes plus those of Municipal bus operators!) that’s it’s almost impossible to make anything out clearly. Maybe this is a case of form over function, or maybe it needs to be viewed at it’s actual poster dimensions (which, […]

Official Map: Vaporetto Routes of Venice, Italy, 2012

February 18, 2012
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Venice is one of those places that has to be experienced to fully appreciate it. Forever and inextricably tied to the ocean, Venice’s transit system has always been vaporetti and traghetti rather than buses and trains. You walk, or you get on a boat – there is no other way to get around. As shown in my photo above (taken on a misty morning at the Ferrovia wharf), there’s a certain sense of mystery and […]

Official Map: Key Bus Routes in Central London, 2012

February 11, 2012
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This charming diagram produced by Transport for London is obviously targeted at tourists, but still manages to pack a lot of information in – bus routes, tourist attractions, connections to the Tube, Overground, DLR, National Rail and river ferries. That it still manages to look attractive and be easy to follow makes it all the better. Have we been there? Yes, and I even got off the Tube to catch a bus here and there. […]

Official Map: Glasgow Subway (Before and After)

February 10, 2012
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It’s always fun to do a comparison between old and new maps, and we have a great opportunity with this very recent rebranding of the Glasgow Subway (the third-oldest subway system in the world at 115 years of age, after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro). A deceptively simple system, the Subway consists of a single loop with 15 stations — trains run clockwise on the Outer Circle, and anti-clockwise on the Inner Circle. […]

Official Map: Bus Transit of Spokane, Washington, 2012

February 9, 2012
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Well, it certainly didn’t take long for people to set me right after my blanket statement that bus maps are “just” boring old geographically-accurate road maps with routes on them. I’ve had a flood of submissions, comments and tweets on the subject, complete with links to some very interesting examples of bus-only maps. This one, from the city of Spokane in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, definitely caught my eye. For a fairly […]

Official Map: Métro de Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2012

January 31, 2012
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Requested by pomme-poire-peche Montréal’s Metro map instantly stands out from the crowd  by virtue of its black background – a feature only rarely seen in transit maps. Although the idea of a subway serving Montréal was first tabled in the early 1900s, it wasn’t until 1966 that it finally opened. Have we been there? No. What we like: Graphically bold and clean. Black background and subdued colour for the waterways really allow the thick, colourful […]

Official Map: Singapore MRT/LRT System Map, 2012

January 29, 2012
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Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system only opened in 1987, but has expanded greatly since then and now boasts 90 stations and almost 150 kilometres of lines. It is supplemented by the LRT, which is not a true light rail system, but is more like an automated people mover that serves the high density apartment blocks prevalent in land-poor Singapore. In earlier versions of the map, I believe that the stylised “S” logo in the […]

Official Map: Boston MBTA Rapid Transit/Key Bus Routes Map, 2012

January 23, 2012
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I haven’t really looked at the Boston MBTA map since I was there for a few days in the middle of 2008, but I certainly don’t remember it looking as bad as this. I’ve always been mildly annoyed by the fact that not all the stations on the surface street sections of the Green Line are labelled, but my overall impression back then was of a solid, well-designed map. Just a few short years later, […]

Official Map: LVB, Leipzig, Germany, 2012

January 17, 2012
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In a way, this map of Leipzig reminds me quite a bit of Viteks Bariševs’ recently featured map of Riga: both feature an extensive tram/streetcar/bus network shown in a highly diagrammatic form. However, this highly detailed map goes one step further in that it also shows frequency of services. The thicker the route line, the more often it arrives, regardless of travel mode. This solution is so devastatingly simple, it’s a wonder it isn’t used […]