Submitted by Jace, who says:

A while ago I saw your review of the Cercanías Madrid [our 2022 review is here – Cam], and, as a regular user of the system, I too find the map quite bad: Uneven distances between lines, mismatched fonts in the route bullets, and overall lack of quality. So, I took it upon myself to make a better map.

I’ve centered it around the central loop of track, and I’ve switched around some lines (Namely the C-7 in the northwest and the C-3 and C-4) to avoid unnecessary crossings. I’ve made the CIVIS service, which is given little to no attention in the official map, into its own line and added a notice stating that it has limited service. Also, the key has been simplified, and I’ve added some notes regarding the service patterns (Like the C-5 sometimes terminating at Fuenlabrada instead of Humanes and the switch between C-1 and C-7 at Príncipe Pío). Finally, I’ve added notices where some trains continue past a terminus.

I really hope you like it, and I’m looking forward to your comment on how to improve it.

Transit Maps says:

I have really mixed feelings about this diagram. On one hand, the concept behind the reworking and the technical quality of the draftsmanship are both top notch – making two mirrored loops around the central spine works incredibly well and is a a fantastic example of finding a pattern and making it a strong visual motif – but on the other hand, I just think everything is just too lightweight to hold together as a cohesive piece of design.

I really do think that there’s a point where route lines can be too thin to be read and followed easily, and I think this diagram has crossed that line. These thin lines in turn create incredibly small station dots which can be hard to find, especially on the yellow C-5 line. And these are paired with very small, lightweight station names… and then hairline zone boundaries… it just all compounds into something that doesn’t feel grounded or solid, like it’s all going to float away on the next puff of wind. Note that the larger labels for the terminus/interchange station work much better – big and bold enough to feel important, and large enough to be read at a distance. The other labels don’t need to be as bold as these, but they should be much closer in size to them than what they are now – you really shouldn’t ever have labels that are smaller than their supporting icons.

Some other areas to consider – I was slightly surprised to see that the right-hand loop is slightly smaller from top to bottom that the left one: making them exact mirrors of each other seems like the obvious thing to do to me. Visually, they do look pretty similar to the naked eye, so maybe this is a case of eyeballing it to look “right.” However, the whole diagram is obviously positioned too far to the right on the page and should all be moved to the left to centre it properly.

Finally, I think there’s room to clean up and rework the legend to use the top of the page more effectively without leaving that big empty space to the right. C-5 and C-7 could be moved to the last column to even things out – six route lines in each column. This would also allow a bit more vertical space between each entry, making each one a discrete visual element. Lastly, the columns themselves could be wider to fill in that empty space, maybe even to a point where each entry only uses one line instead of sometimes needing two? Arguably, the legend is just as important as the diagram itself, so it’s worth taking the time to really make it look good.

Our final word: A killer concept that puts the official map to shame. It needs some weight added to its bones to make it truly useful and more easily legible. Definitely an idea worth refining!