Submitted by Peter, who says:
Ages ago, after you posted a tutorial on highway interchanges on your McKinney Ave streetcar map, I was inspired to try and practice the technique on what ended up being a very very similar project–definitely too similar to take any credit for.
I left it incomplete for so long because it was just uncomfortably reminiscent of your map to finish, but for the sake of completion and appreciation for the guide, I thought I would make it presentable and share, perhaps only just to add a new city to your collection!
Transit Maps says:
Peter, I wouldn’t worry so much about any perceived similarity between the two maps. A base map is just that – a base upon which the important information is overlaid. Your route lines, station treatment, typography and legend are all very different to my McKinney Avenue Streetcar map, so the two end up looking completely dissimilar.
Your map is also certainly better than the official map, which contains a lot of extraneous visual detail and hides important information in the verbose text to the left of the map. Your concise legend contains all the same information, but in a much more digestible, easy to understand format. Nice work there!
About the only addition I’d really like to see to your map is a scale, so that people can get an idea of the area they’re looking at. A problem with this streetcar system – as with many others in the US – is the wait time. While the two lines combine for an acceptable average headway of 12 minutes (assuming properly timed operations) in the shared loop section south of the Arkansas River, they’re running 23 to 25 minutes apart in North Little Rock and out to the Presidential Library. This basically means that if you just miss a streetcar in these areas, you’d probably be better off walking than waiting for the next one. Having a scale that lets people know that it’s perhaps only a quarter-mile or so to the stop they were intending to get off at could be very helpful.
All in all, I think this is a neat little map, and it certainly illustrates my technique for drawing highway interchanges nicely – just look at that tangle of on/off ramps for I-30! Thanks for sharing!