All posts filed under: Visualizations

Submission: Time Scale Map of Bay Area Rapid Transit by Michael Lopato

November 20, 2015
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Submitted by Michael, who says: Today, I would like to submit a different sort of map.  Most time scale maps that I have seen so far (such as this one or this one) involve two common elements: a central station or origin, and concentric circles representing time.  Though I believe that both of these are very good maps, this approach might be better suited to a city like Pittsburgh (where nearly everyone commutes to the […]

Interactive Map: Archaeology of the Pacific Electric, Los Angeles by The Militant Angeleno

November 10, 2015
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Historical Maps, Visualizations
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Here’s an absolutely superb piece of interactive mapping that overlays the routes of the Pacific Electric streetcar system (the “Red Cars”) onto a modern Google aerial map of the greater Los Angeles area. That’s interesting enough by itself, but this map goes further, and pinpoints the still-extant remnants of this once-great network – stations, uncovered sections of old track, power substations, railway bridges and more – and has photographs from many of these locations. It’s wonderfully […]

Infographic: WNYC’s “Live Subway Agony Index”

October 21, 2015
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Watching WNYC’s “Live Subway Agony Index” as the downtown 6X goes into meltdown is kind of awesome. So many UGGGHHHs.  If you’ve never seen this before, it’s a service that pulls real-time MTA data for the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 6x and converts it into emoji that encapsulates the current feelings of passengers at that station. Simple but effective! Source: WNYC Data News Team

Before and After – Montreal Metro Map, 2015

October 2, 2015
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Pursuant to the last post, here’s a little GIF I screen grabbed from the STM video of the old map versus the new one. Farewell, iconic 37-degree tilt! Also of note: the type is much, much smaller and – strangely, given how much they tout the awesomeness of mixed-case type in the wayfinding system – is still set in all-caps. I’ll reserve my judgement until I see the whole map, however.

“Light Rail” – A Real-Time Boston ‘T’ LED Map by Ian Reynolds

September 25, 2015
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My Transit Maps, Unofficial Maps, Visualizations
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Taking transit map wall art to the next level is this piece by Ian Reynolds, an electrical engineer and computer science student at MIT. Not only does it light up and look cool, but it actually queries the MBTA API to show the real-time position of trains on the system. Very awesome. As Ian himself describes it over on Reddit, “The MBTA is a big part of life in Boston, and I built this as sort […]

Submission – Chicago Table of ‘El’ements

September 21, 2015
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Submitted by long time contributor, Kara Fischer, who asks: Clever idea? Or useless eye-candy? Transit Maps says: Definitely just eye-candy, and really only made because of the terrible ‘El’ements pun in the title. It’s certainly not useful in any meaningful way and doesn’t bear anything but a superficial resemblance to the actual periodic table of elements.  Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, by the way, is one of the most information-dense infographics ever, with both the rows and columns […]

Video: Rail Transit in Warsaw, Poland 1908–2015

September 1, 2015
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Submitted by Jakub Bobrowski, who says: This is a short film made using the QGIS and TimeManager, which presents the development process of rail public transport in Warsaw in the last 107 years. The animation shows the construction and decommissioning of tram tracks, underground, Warsaw Commuter Railway (WKD) and Fast City Rail (SKM) between 1908 and 2015. Additionally, the map showing a riverbed of the Vistula River and the changing administrative borders of Warsaw. This […]

GIF – The Longest Possible New York Subway Ride?

July 11, 2015
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The New York Subway is famous for having a flat fare for any ride within the system – be it for just a couple of stops, or an epic end-to-end trek. So long as you don’t pass through a fare gate, you can pretty much go anywhere! WNYC is having fun with that fare structure to find the longest possible ride you can take without reusing a section of track. Their initial record – as […]

GIF – Expansion of the Shanghai Metro, 1994-2014

July 6, 2015
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Wow. From nothing in 1993 to 14 lines, 338 stations and 548km (341 miles) of track – the longest rapid transit system by route length in the world – in 2015. A mere 8 million people use the system on an average weekday. Of interest is the massive expansion in the years leading up to the 2010 Shanghai Wold Expo. See also this 1939 tram and trolleybus map of Shanghai’s International Settlement.  Source: Wikimedia Commons/user: […]

Submission – Portland MAX Light Rail Yellow/Orange Line Interlining Graphic

June 23, 2015
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Submitted by Breck, who says: Here’s a neat little animated map and explanation that show how the new MAX Orange Line will tie into the rest of the system in downtown Portland. Like many other transit fans, I too have wondered how the Orange Line will work and why it won’t just be a simple extension of the Yellow Line. It is all explained here, and the reasoning seems to make pretty good sense. Transit […]