All posts filed under: Unofficial Maps

Submission – Unofficial Map: Isometric Rail Map of Nuremberg, Germany by Stevan Wurm

August 30, 2017
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Submitted by Stevan, who says: I’d love to get an opinion from you about my concept for Nuremberg’s metro region transit map. I’m not huge fan of official Nuremberg-Fuerth map [which hasn’t changed substantially since I reviewed it back in May 2012 – Cam] so I decided to give a try and redesign the map. In past I’ve tried several times to create transit maps for few cities but this one is the first one I could […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: London’s Rail Services by David Milne

August 2, 2017
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Submitted by David, who says: This all started about 17 years ago as an exercise to teach myself to use Macromedia Freehand. The years passed, Freehand became Adobe Illustrator, and I continued to work on it. The original Idea was to create an A4 sized map to carry around in my pocket, but it quickly became apparent that to contain the desired detail and remain legible it would have to be printed at A1 or […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Minsk Metro, Belarus by Ilya Birman, Ivan Zviahin and Konstantin Evstratenko

August 2, 2017
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If you ever do a Google image search for the map of the Minsk Metro, you’ll quickly find out that there are a lot of dreary, hackneyed and downright terrible versions of it – both official and unofficial. Despite the simplicity of its X-shaped two-line system (with a third in the works), it just doesn’t seem to inspire good design work. Until now.  Ilya Birman – whom Transit Maps has featured a number of times […]

Unofficial Map – Bay Area Rail One-Word Station Names by Brian Stokle

May 13, 2017
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A tongue-in-cheek rationalisation of Bay Area rail transit to remove all the slashes in those terribly long and indecisive station names: North Concord/Martinez, Warm Springs/South Fremont, etc. Amusing, but also a pointed look at the peculiarly American habit of attempting to appease everyone when it comes to naming stations. Now, can someone do one of these for Washington, DC? *cough* U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo *cough* Source: Urban Life Signs

Submission – Unofficial Map of Helsinki Tram Network by Elmo Allén

May 11, 2017
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Submitted by Mikko.  This is a really lovely little diagram, which treads the fine line between simplifying the network and depicting Helsinki’s complex geography very deftly. Near-future extensions (up to 2023) are depicted with hollow route lines and estimated opening dates for stations and new track. One thing it does lack is a legend – while most of the map is pretty self-explanatory, an indication that Line 5 and the short 6T extension only run […]

Unofficial Map – New York City Subway Track Map by Andrew Lynch

May 11, 2017
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I’m kind of surprised that this hasn’t been done before – there are plenty of similar track maps out there for other major transit cities like London and Paris – but this is very nicely executed indeed.  The map looks great, is easily understood even without consulting the legend, and has copious footnotes for those who want to really dive deep into the inner workings of the subway. Extra kudos for cleverly fitting the label “MANHATTAN” […]

A Look at Amtrak Under the Proposed Federal Budget

April 15, 2017
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A federal budget outline from the Trump Administration looks to slash funding for rail transportation, including a complete elimination of federal funds for long-distance Amtrak routes like the Empire Builder, Southwest Chief and California Zephyr.  The map above, adapted from my Amtrak as Subway Map project, shows what the “national” passenger rail network could look like under this proposal: isolated, separate rail services, with no cross-country connections and over 220 stations without Amtrak rail service. Chicago, […]

Could a Tweak to the DC Metro Map Fix Overcrowding?

February 22, 2017
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Here’s a quick link to an article in the Washington Post by Martine Powers about a study that shows how tinkering with Washington, DC’s Metrorail map influences rider’s perceptions of the system and which path they should take to reach their final destination. In the image above, for example, the Blue Line has been altered to look less desirable than the Yellow Line when coming into DC from the south… and in testing, there was […]

Unofficial Map: Map of all Urban Rail Transit Systems in Germany

February 13, 2017
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Via peopleneedaplacetogo on Tumbr Map of all local/urban rail transit systems in Germany (green S-Bahn, blue U-Bahn, red tram, yellow tram-train), by Wikipedia user Chumwa. Neat to-scale graphic of urban rail (and trolleybus as well, shown in purple) in Germany, last updated in June 2016. The length and breadth of some of the S-Bahn networks is quite astounding – look at Leipzig’s!  Click through to the map on the Wikimedia Commons for a better look.

Quick Project: Redesign of the Dallas Streetcar/DART Rail Strip Map

February 11, 2017
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The other day, long-time correspondent Edward Russell tweeted a photo of a strip map he’d seen while on the Dallas Streetcar (left). It depicts the DART light rail system, telling riders that they can make a connection with that service at Union Station (at one end of the short streetcar line). However, the execution of the map is almost comically poor: wobbly route lines, clashing labels, uneven spacing of stations and more. One of the […]