Submitted by Chris, who says:
This is one of my latest works: an integrated rail diagram for the Baltimore and Washington DC areas. The style is inspired by Vignelli’s subway maps from the 70s. There are no intentional geographic references. I have tried to show all rail services – heavy, light rail and streetcar – in the same manner (all strokes are of the same thickness). Station indicators are different depending on service/transportation mode (circle = metro, subway, square = light rail, streetcar, diamond = regional, commuter rail). The diagram is supposed to reflect current services and lines under construction and two proposed infill stations (metro: Potomac Yard; commuter: Potomac Shores). What are your thoughts on this?
Transit Maps says:
A really nice bit of work from Chris here, which overall does a good job of dealing with the differing scales of the component systems. Because of its more tightly spaced light rail lines, Baltimore comes off looking a little bit cramped in comparison to DC, but it’s not a huge deal. On the other hand, this is probably the best representation of the Purple Line I’ve seen so far, with a simple trajectory and lovely, evenly-spaced stations.
It’s perhaps a little unfortunate that the shortest line – the current DC Streetcar, here renamed as Line 4 – is visually the strongest, as it draws the viewer’s eye right to it. All the other streetcar/light rail lines are pastel hues, so the dark charcoal grey used here seems out of place.
The different station marker shapes are a good idea in principle, though they can be a little hard to tell apart at a glance. Particular care needs to be taken with the square and the diamond and their relationship to the line that they sit on to prevent confusion – when lines are angled at 45 degrees like on the left of the map, it becomes even more difficult to quickly tell if a station is a square or a diamond.
I personally prefer to flip the Silver Line (Chris’ Line F) underneath the Orange Line (Line E) at East Falls Church so that it travels across the map sandwiched between the Orange and Blue lines. This gets rid of the need for the dinky little jog that the Silver Line has to do after Stadium-Armory, which always seems a little detailed and fussy in a diagram like this.
Our rating: Very competent and stylish, and definitely makes one dream of a day when rail transit in this region is unified under a single fare structure, much like a German Verkehrsverbund. Three-and-a-half stars.