May 1, 2021 marks Amtrak’s 50th anniversary! On that day in 1971, most regional and long-distance trains in the United States either disappeared or became part of the new national rail carrier’s network (there were some exceptions to this rule, which we’ll get to later). While there are plenty of maps out there that show the general extent of Amtrak’s nascent system — including one that I made myself as part of an historical series — there aren’t any that break things down to the actual routes that were available from that day. I’ve been meaning to make just such a map for a while now, and the silver anniversary finally gave me the kick in the pants that I needed to get it done! Read more and see the map after the jump.
Here’s my proposal for a low-floor LRT system in Downtown, West Palm Beach, FL (pop. ~110,000). It’s fun to think about as West Palm actually grew up as a fairly dense railroad town in the 1920s around the Seaboard and FEC stations. Wedged between two large lakes and the intercoastal waterway, the downtown is a fairly dense north-south oriented grid, with a mix of historic homes and apartment towers. The higher-speed train system Brightline has recently started operating between Downtown Miami and West Palm Beach on the FEC tracks, though it shut for COVID (however Brightline is using the closure to expedite resignalling and track work for an ongoing extension to Orlando).
On the Blue Line, through downtown this system travels on Olive Avenue and Dixie Highway. A redesigned traffic pattern would discourage drivers from using these two roads, and would instead encourage them to use the much wider Quadrille Avenue. This would entail a series of required turnoffs at every intersection, such as is used on Market Street in San Francisco.
On the Pink Line, as it exits the airport it utilizes the space around the existing Tri-Rail ROW to cross the very-wide Belvedere Blvd. After crossing Belvedere, it proceeds at-grade underneath the elevated I-95 ROW, at which point it starts street running on Belvedere Blvd.
Transit Maps says:
As always, I can’t really comment on the feasibility or likelihood of such a project – although it’s definitely nice to dream of a future where Brightline, Tri-Rail and Amtrak services in southern Florida are complemented by comprehensive light rail “feeder systems” in the major cities along their routes.
The first thing I noticed about this map was the superb treatment of the aerial photography base map. It looks like Adam has made great use of the Gradient Map effect in Photoshop to create a stylish dark grey-to-black effect that really allows his route line colours to pop out of the background, but still retain a lot of detail in the photo. I love it, and I’m totally using this look next time I have to make a map using aerial imagery. The white labels stand out nicely as well, the yellow Brightline route and text is acceptable, but the green Tri-Rail line and text is just a little hard to make out. Some minor tweaking/brightening of colours will solve this in no time, however.
Adam has chosen to represent one-way sections of the routes with thinner lines, which is a perfectly acceptable solution. However, he’s kept the thinner lines centred on the thicker part and has also reduced the thickness of the white keyline that separates the background from the route lines. This makes the transition between the thick and thin sections very abrupt as the line weight suddenly “steps down”, and the thinner white outline makes the narrower lines disappear into the background a bit. I always prefer to offset the thinner sections a bit to line up with the outer edges of the thicker line on both sides. Keeping the white border the same apparent thickness also helps a lot to ease the transition and keep the thinner route lines nicely separated from the background. See the image below for an example.
Our final word: A simple little fantasy system well rendered on a striking background image. Some minor improvements in colour contrast for legibility and the depiction of one way sections could be made, but this is still rather lovely.
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!
I’d like to submit the official map of the tram network of the Upper Silesian urban area, also known as Katowice urban area. The network currently consists of 29 lines spanning 13 cities and over 300km of single track, making it one of the largest in the world. The map in addition to trams also depicts a few bus replacement services due to extensive renovations of rail infrastructure. What is particular about this map compared to other tram network maps in Poland is its emphasis on borders between cities as the ticket price depends on how many cities you travel through.
Transit Maps says:
An intriguing diagram of a network that I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about – an extensive tram-based network that acts as both city service and interurban connector. It’s perhaps important to note, however, that no one line extends the full length or breadth of the system, meaning you’d have to transfer a few times to get from one end to the other!
For such a sprawling network, the diagram is laid out reasonably well, with a nice chunky design style and clear labelling. The amount of angled labels are perhaps unfortunate, but almost unavoidable given the amount of stations. The black bar for major interchange stations is unusual, but certainly effective at drawing in the viewer’s eye. For the most part, the routes are clear and easy to follow, though the 23’s little turnaround down to Katowice Plac Miarki is very unclear. The sheer number of different travel zones is probably handled about as well as it can be, and I’m certainly glad that it hasn’t been done by using shaded background areas – that would have been a complete mess!
Initially, the most perplexing thing about this diagram is the colour scheme, which seems very skewed towards the pink/purple end of the spectrum. Pinks and purples make up pretty much half of the different routes, while greens and blues seem very under-represented. However, the diagram works surprisingly well when viewed using a colour-blindness simulator, with excellent contrast between adjacent lines… so I wonder if that’s part of the reasoning behind what on the surface looks quite peculiar? For me, the color-blind version is actually better balanced visually than the actual colours, as seen in the detail below.
Our final word: Considering the size and density of the network (over 300 stops!), this really is quite a clean and clear diagram. An apparently odd colour scheme actually works well for colour-blind users, showing the difficulties inherent in designing something attractive and usable for all users of a transit diagram.
Here’s a fantastic poster designed as the centre spread of an advertising supplement to various Bay Area newspapers to celebrate the first ten years of BART (1972–1982). The immediately recognisable system diagram is overlaid on top of some charming line illustrations of landmarks and attractions, with the routes of BART Express buses also indicated. It’s all very simple – the illustration looks like it’s been done with some coloured fine felt-tip pens – but it’s well drafted and quite effective, creating a fun little map to mark BART’s first decade.
If I have one minor complaint, it’s that the hand-lettered station names are quite hard to read, becoming lost in the busy illustrated background. However, as the map is really meant to be decorative, I hardly think this really matters much.
The other side of the poster folds up into two sheets filled with “BART facts”. See a high-res scan here.
Old streetcar maps often do a very poor job of actually showing how the routes ran – often just drawing an otherwise unmarked red line down the middle of roads on a standard cartographic map without any explanation of stops, loops or route names (see left for an example). Finding accurate information about the actual routing of individual lines can be a long and thankless process, so when long-time Transit Maps correspondent Karl Otterstrom tweeted not only a timetable, but a full turn-by-turn listing of streetcar routes in Spokane in 1912, I knew that I had the chance to make something awesome – a comprehensive map that showed every route in its entirety, untangling the old network and removing a lot of the mystery about how streetcars in Spokane actually worked.
Without further ado, here’s the map in my spiffy new zoomable map format. View the map in the window below – you can zoom in and out, pan around, and also go full screen. Or, you can also click here to experience the map in a full browser window. Read on underneath the map for a comprehensive overview of the design process.
I just wanted to share with you the official map of the buses (MetroBus) that link the city of Valencia (Spain) with towns of its metropolitan area. Map by the Valencia Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATMV).
Transit Maps says:
Oh dear. This is… bad.
MetroBus (a collective term for all the metropolitan buses run by various operating companies in and around Valencia) operates over 100 routes, but you’d be hard pressed to see that from this desultory diagram.
For a start, there are no route numbers on the map at all, so it’s almost impossible to do any kind of route planning. And then there’s the different colour coding for the routes, which has no apparent or useful meaning because the map doesn’t have a legend.
There’s absolutely no reason for any of the stop labels on this map to be set at an angle, and yet so many are. The label for El Saler doesn’t even sit on its route line, missing it by a good margin.
What exactly happens to the routes when they enter Valencia itself? The map seems to imply they all just suddenly terminate near the edge of Zone A, but I seriously doubt that’s the reality of the situation.
A very minor positive: the zones are at least drawn relatively competently and aren’t too distracting. I like the way that the zone letters are stacked neatly down the right edge of the map.
Our final word: Seems almost half-finished. Almost completely useless for any form of route planning.
Perhaps because of post-war austerity measures, this map was printed with just two inks – green and black – but still manages to do a lot of really good work.
The radial nature of the Green Line network definitely makes things easier for the designer, as only a few of the routes really interact with others as they spread inexorably outwards from the map’s centre. The large route numbers at each terminus are great, as is the eye-catching reversed white rectangle indicating central London which also refers readers to a more detailed map on the other side of the sheet. Labelling is in the almost-ubiquitous Gill Sans, which for me always seems to work a bit better as all-caps, such as at the terminus stations.
Our final word: The limited colour palette might have been imposed on the designer, but they’ve turned it into a positive – creating a distinctive and stylish piece.
I made an animated visualization of the light rail infrastructure of San Francisco from 1850–to–nowish. I was wondering if you would be interested in posting!
Transit Maps says:
I sure would be, Travis! This is a great 15-minute video that succinctly outlines the rise and fall of rail-based street transit in San Francisco, Oakland and even Marin County. The sheer number of competing companies in the early years is quite staggering! The impact of the Great Earthquake is covered, and there’s even a look at a couple of “alternate future” San Franciscos – one dominated by all the freeways that were once planned, and another where much of the rail infrastructure had been kept. Nicely animated and clearly narrated, it’s well worth a look to get an overview of transit history in the Bay Area.
Note: Travis acknowledges his error regarding San Francisco’s current population at the beginning of the video; don’t hold it against him!
Hello Cameron! Last week my WiFi was out so I was disrupted from my usual cartographic routine and decided try something outside the box. What I ended up coming up with was this cartogram showing travel time between light rail stations in the Twin Cities. I always find it to be a creature comfort when transit maps tell me travel time between stations, and it can really highlight some advantages (or disadvantages) of a system. It was a fun little endeavor and I wanted to share it!
Transit Maps says:
This is a sweet little visualization that almost seems willfully minimalist, even down to the choice of a “typewriter” font for the station labels. An unconventional choice, but I think it works given the immediacy and simplicity of the graphic. I have to admit that I never really know whether or not I’m meant to count the station dot as a “minute” with this type of graphic, although it probably doesn’t matter too much one way or the other if you account for the dwell time at each station.
There’s only one slight problem that I see: because the Mall of America and Union Depot terminal stations are the same distance down the page from the top, it could be assumed on a casual glance that it takes the same amount of time to reach both stations from The Interchange. However, because the Green Line takes a dogleg across the map, it actually takes quite a bit longer to reach its final destination. It’s not a big deal, but it does mean that the information contained in the diagram takes a little longer to parse.
Our final word: Simple and to the point, with an execution to match. Fun!
