All posts filed under: Unofficial Maps

Official Map: Sydney Trains Bankstown Line Closure Bus Services Map… and a Better Unofficial Alternative

June 7, 2021
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Sydney’s Bankstown Line is closing for two weeks at the end of June as part of its conversion from standard heavy rail to a new and fancy high-frequency Metro line. Sydney Trains has produced the following map to help people navigate the many train replacement bus services needed to get riders around, and it’s… not great. While I understand that producing this type of map often involves a rapid turnaround with very little budget, this […]

Submission – Unofficial Map of All Transmilenio Services, Bogotá, Colombia by Sergio Mejía

May 7, 2021
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Unofficial Maps
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Submitted by Sergio, who says: Hi Cameron! Some months ago I designed a map of my city Bogotá where it shows all of the services in the system in the shape of the map we know. As you know, there are a ton of services in Transmilenio, so a standard map wouldn’t work – thus each station having strip maps of the lines. However, I wanted to see how a full map would look. Of […]

Submission – Twin Cities Travel Time Cartogram by Avian Ciganko-Ford

February 17, 2021
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Submitted by Avian, who says: Hello Cameron! Last week my WiFi was out so I was disrupted from my usual cartographic routine and decided try something outside the box. What I ended up coming up with was this cartogram showing travel time between light rail stations in the Twin Cities. I always find it to be a creature comfort when transit maps tell me travel time between stations, and it can really highlight some advantages […]

Submission – Curvilinear Barcelona Rail Map by Frank Rodriguez

February 8, 2021
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Submitted by Frank, who says: Hello, months ago I designed a curvilinear version of Barcelona’s railways and proximities. I think it’s interesting because it gives a new vision of the lines, and also I tried to make it satisfying to watch. I’d like to receive professional opinions of my works, so I send it in this interesting website. Transit Maps says: This is a really interesting design experiment, and Frank has executed it expertly – […]

Submission – Soviet Metro Map Design Revival by Cédric

January 28, 2021
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Mash-Up Maps, Unofficial Maps
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Submitted by Cédric, who says: I got interested in a historical map of the Moscow Metro featured on this site some time ago (November 2012, 4 stars). The radical simplicity of the visual language, using only straight lines and circles, gives a unique quality to the map, both in its high legibility and evocative power. Realizing that it would be geometrically impossible to recreate this design to fit today’s expanded Moscow metro network, I started […]

Submission – Fantasy Map: A speculative rail transit map of Bengaluru, India by ‘theotherspica’

January 22, 2021
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Fantasy Maps, Unofficial Maps
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Submitted by ‘theotherspica’, who says: I’m an amateur designer and, having had some free time during the pandemic, decided to try and make my first metro map. I found your site very useful while making the map. Thank you for your amazing collection of helpful tips and examples that helped me avoid many first-time mistakes I would otherwise have made. This map is based on official info and speculation. My speculations and assumptions are based […]

Submission – Unofficial Prague Metro Map by Kostya Cherepovskyi

January 11, 2021
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Submitted by Kostya, who says: Hi Cameron, Hope you’re safe and doing well. Remember metro orientation map of Prague you’ve reviewed back in 2012 (August 2012, 3.5 stars)? You might be surprised how little it changed since then. The framing you were uncertain about, little bits here and there, and… that’s pretty much it. This seems like an overhaul waiting to happen, doesn’t it? So here I am trying to address some of the issues […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Philadelphia Transit and Points of Interest, 2020 by Marc Szarkowski

January 4, 2021
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Submitted by Marc, who says: I thought you might enjoy poring over a transit+points of interest map I recently drew of Center City Philadelphia. I’ve collected bird’s eye urban panoramas since I was a child, and I particularly enjoy panoramas that have placemaking and wayfinding value, such as those drawn by Jenni Sparks and other artists. I also find there’s no better way to learn and demystify seemingly-complex bus service than drawing it a couple […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Transit Map of Hamburg, Germany by Simon Heidenreich

January 1, 2021
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Submitted by Simon, who says: Hamburg, Germany’s line map always strikes me as one of the most ugly maps depicting a major transit network – one can understand if the ones made for small town bus networks are not up to the design standard of the upper echelons like Moscow or the like, but a city like Hamburg having such a bad map is just strange. The convoluted knot of lines around the main station […]

Unofficial Historical Map: Edinburgh Tramways, 1924 by Andy Arthur

November 5, 2020
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Historical Maps, Unofficial Maps
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I came across this lovely piece this morning on Twitter, so here’s a review. This is Andy’s second stab at Edinburgh (see also this map showing an “idealised” 1940s network), and I think it’s clear to see that Andy has come along in leaps and bounds as a map designer since then. One thing I always appreciate about Andy’s maps is how tactile they seem: they really do look like old printed maps and that’s […]