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 make it really hard to properly layout the lines and it took me an immense amount of time to make it look halfway decent; the fact that it has two trunk lines does not help.

I added the actual station building with the iconic iron arches and in my opinion, it helps a bit with orientation, especially looking at the “Hbf Nord” and “Hbf Süd” Metro stops that are neither really north or south of the place in real life.

Further additions are, of course, a tiny Elbphilhaarmonie with the corresponding ferry line from Landungsbrücken, walking interchange indications with distance and approximate walking time, overall more harmonic spacing, and many more small things.

Transit Maps says:

There’s a lot of things I really like about this map: the 3D Hauptbahnhof and the way the lines run “through” it is nothing short of inspired, and everything is very neatly and evenly laid out. But there’s one big problem with it that shows what a balancing act a really great transit map really is – if one thing isn’t right, then the whole design can be thrown out of balance.

Simon has employed a distinctive white dash for each station, which in turn needs a background of sufficient darkness for these dashes to show up properly. However, that dark grey background then reduces the contrast between it and the route lines and labels, especially in the darker inner AB tariff zone. The green S1 and teal U4 lines are very recessive against the background, and the cyan label for the Elbphilhaarmonie ferry stop gets swallowed up almost completely. Most of the other colours fare somewhat better – the dark green S11 works much better than the mid-green S1, for example – so the solution could just be adjusting colours to improve the contrast to an acceptable level. It may also be possible to lighten the grey backgrounds just a tad and still use the white station markers, which I do quite like.

A couple of other notes: For me, the canals that join the Alster to the Elbe – while technically correct – are a little too busy and fussy and could perhaps be eliminated, especially as the rest of the river is so clean and stylised. The inclusion of walking distances between nearby stations and landmarks is a welcome addition, though.

Our final word: Contrast between elements is hugely important, and this otherwise excellent map needs a bit of work to improve matters in that department.