Submitted by Max, who says:
Some time ago you had someone submit a redesign of the Montreal map in the style of Harry Beck (August 2013), but noted it included a number of “un-Beckian” turns at the ends of the green line. Inspired by this, and that Montreal’s system was manageable for a first-time designer, I removed as much of the geography as I felt I could. I picture this being the right sort of map for above the doors of a train car.
The map’s odd angle came about by a bit of an accident, and is likely its greatest flaw, because it crowds out the station names in a number of places, and a steeper angle would likely do less of this.
Transit Maps says:
I think this is an interesting way to depict the system within the confines of a narrow space, Max, and for the most part it works fairly well. Of course, there’s some necessary distortion to make things fit (including “north” being at both ends of the map where the two termini of the Orange Line are), but the indication of the islands helps with orientation somewhat. The twinning of the Green and Orange lines between Lionel-Groux and Berri-UQAM works well, as does the way that the Yellow Line continues along the slope set up by the Green Line – deftly done!
The main problem that I see –and it’s one that Max has already identified himself – is the spacing of the stations, which can shift from being quite cramped, to generous, and back to cramped again along the length of a line. An approach here could be to mark out the longest line – the Orange Line here with 31 stations – into completely even divisions, and then use that measurement as the basis of a grid to align the other stations on the map to. This would definitely help the left end of the Green Line to Angrignon, which seems the most cramped part of the map to me.
After that, look for more simplification and alignment of elements. The right end of the Orange Line could continue up its slope until it is level with the Blue Line and then travel horizontally, for example.
In short, I think this is a good concept that fits a lot of information into a tight space, but it needs some refinement to really make it work. Keep at it!
I think this is a very brave yet unique take on things, and could be used a strip map if improved! Name placement needs some work, like Cameron already mentioned (I particularly dislike how Lionel-Groulx is split); the downtown lines (green and orange) could probably be aligned with each other for a cleaner look, too. All in all though, an interesting experiment!
Interesting. It seems to be inspired by the original metro map, that was located on the top of the door at the opening of the original system in 1966.