Submitted by Nick, who writes:
Hi Cameron — hope you’re staying well these days. I’m pleased to submit two maps I made to capture the North Atlantic Rail System. The system is a proposed high-speed rail network to connect New England’s major hubs. In my map, I imagine it connecting to and interacting with the existing CT Rail, MBTA Commuter Rail, and Amtrak systems throughout the region. Taken in totality, you see a much more transitable version of New England. (I also added in some other proposed upgrades and extensions, like the Danbury Branch to New Milford).
This map obviously has some Vignelli inspirations, and this presented some unique challenges. Major termini (like Boston’s stations, but New Haven, Hartford, and Springfield as well) become unwieldy quickly with so many lines converging. I also ran into a number of perpendicular transfer points that can lead to awkward and messy solutions. I think I’ve resolved these about as well as can be — just primarily by how easy it is to scan and understand which lines go where — but I don’t know if I’d ever be entirely pleased by some of these transfer points. And I unfortunately had to include some angled text; I tried to ameliorate my own issues with angled text by ensuring all angled text points in the same direction (so nobody would have to flip their head back and forth) and by being thoughtful on where and how it’s deployed.
The first map (below) is what I call the “System Diagram.” This map helps you visualize coverage, but places extra emphasis on being able to quickly understand how to get from Point A to Point B — while considering all needed transfer points — over everything else, and sacrifices some readability and ease of use.
“System” diagram.
If the other version is a “System Diagram,” I called the second one a “Coverage Diagram.” Unlike the first version, this one sacrifices a good deal of usability — there are a number of places where the need for a transfer, for instance, is obfuscated — but presents a much more legible view of the system. It’s now far easier to scan through and get a sense of the full system and where it goes.
“Coverage” diagram
In addition to your thoughts on these two maps, I’d be interested on your thoughts on which presents the greatest utility for the average user. Perhaps the second version, while simpler, is better — unlike a subway system, the average user won’t be making travel decisions by a map these days! Or perhaps the full system diagram better conveys the breadth of options available. They both obviously have their own usefulness, but exploring the differences was a fun part of this project.
Transit Maps says:
These are both really good diagrams, Nick – definitely evocative of the Vignelli style, and nicely executed. I like the slightly muted colour palette you’ve used: the green, purple, and red work really nicely with each other and the light yellow background. The blue water is perhaps a little dark for my liking, but it’s not too bad. And I really appreciate that you took the time to explore both design alternatives here: this is how we grow as designers!
Some comments that are applicable to both maps before we move on to the question of which is “better”. Overall, these are very solid, though I’d really like to see larger labels throughout. Your canvas is a 36 inch square, and your main station labels are set in 10-point with secondary labels are as small as 6-point. In my experience, this is a little too small to be readable at a reasonable distance when printed out. Obviously, fixing this would require quite a lot of work to respace the map – enlarging the Boston area to accommodate the bigger labels and probably moving it up a bit to get rid of some of that empty space at the top right of the map would be my priority. The more rural areas can get compressed a bit to compensate. Even getting the labels up to 12-point would make a big difference, I think. And I’d come up with a different solution to labels for lines leaving the edge of the map: having tiny labels set within the route line is always going to be too small to be useful.
So, which of the two diagrams works better? While I’m always an advocate of a diagram or map showing each route in its entirety from beginning to end, I think you’re right in saying it doesn’t matter too much for this type of diagram. Network coverage is probably all a prospective rider needs to see, and it definitely presents a simpler, cleaner overview of the network. That’s not to say that I don’t think you’ve done a good job with those major interchange stations on the system diagram, because you totally have. I think there is room to remove some of the ambiguity on the coverage map about routing for the Providence to Worcester Atlantic Rail line by separating it out more like the system map so that it doesn’t look like you can catch a train all the way from New York to Worcester: the radial or separated nature of the rest of the Atlantic Rail lines makes it pretty clear where they all go.
What do you think, readers? Do you have thoughts on which approach is more successful? Leave a comment below.
Our final word: Kudos for taking the time to explore different design options! Get those labels up a bit bigger and these are both really solid diagrams!
Can’t … get … past … “Ontario”. Neither Amtrak’s Adirondack nor the not-so-long-gone Montrealer (now truncated as the Vermonter) went near Ontario – they both cross into Quebec on their way to Montreal (also in Quebec). In fact, New York doesn’t ever share a *land* border with Ontrario – it’s always opposite shores of a river or a lake … though there are several spots where it appears that a well-thrown baseball could span the channel.
Some odd gaps in the NAHSR lines – South from Pittsfield, but only to Danbury? Likewise, Keene-Brattleboro-Springfield … but then change trains?
The whole idea of a trans-Sound tunnel is intriguing, though, gotta say, but make it suitable for freight as well, please (i.e., cleared for double-stack+catenary).
Ha! My comment was going to echo the prior commenter … having lived in that corner of the world, the “Ontario” label is a howler. The Canadian land border with VT, NH and NY is with Quebec. Ontario’s border with NY is entire water. I prefer system maps as opposed to coverage maps, but the latter would make sense, without all the station names, in a small format. I think the map could be improved by making it a little less geographically accurate – make MA and CT larger and the others smaller, so there’s less empty space in the map – which would honor Vignelli too, since he didn’t seem to give a rip about reflecting geography in route diagrams. Fun maps, though – I envy your facility with inventing this!
Yeah, it’s easy for me to be critical, too, but I could never do a map as nice as that! :-
In general, the map is nice, though several of the NAR lines themselves are very strange. Why have a high-speed rail line between Concord, NH and Lowell, MA that requires riders to then transfer to a local commuter service to get into Boston? Why add more Boston-to-Worcester service without providing any Boston-to-Springfield service? And how on earth do they propose to run express services on the crowded Hartford-to-New-Haven route?
I am surprised though that the already under-construction South Coast Rail MBTA services are not shown on this map — seems like it would have been good to include that if we’re going to be considering pipe-dream services like the controversial and much-maligned Boston-to-New-York corridor under the Sound. (By the way, it’s controversial not just because of NIMBYism, but also because it bypasses major transit-dependent cities like Bridgeport and economic centers like Stamford.)
And if I may indulge on one slight error, the station at TF Green Airport south of Providence is actually located before the MBTA service splits off the NEC. Amtrak NER and Acela trains actually pass through the station without stopping.
I like the second version better. Although the first does a better job of showing where services start and stop, the effect seems to unintentionally suggest density of service; you might think that the Hudson line north of New York City has the greatest number of trains of any place on the map, whereas the adjacent lines are actually showing that it has the greatest number of services that branch out to other places (right?). I also think some hint of service density would be useful; the transfer points don’t need to be emphasized if there will be a connecting train soon, but I suppose that the Vermont lines, for example, might have only two or three trains a day each way, so if you’re going from, say, Pittsfield to Bellows Falls, will there be a long or short connection at Springfield? (In Alexandria, Virginia, where I live, I cringe when the talking computer on the local buses announces the transfer point to Virginia Railway Express without mentioning that it might be two or three days till the next train.)
And a technical word about the type: For most of my editing career (1981 to 2020), I relied heavily on Words Into Type, which states that the smallest font size that most adults can easily read is 9 pt.
Otherwise, on the whole, I like the maps.