Official Map: Oklahoma City EMBARK Bus Network by Kyril Negoda

May 18, 2014
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mappingtwincities:

A Note on the Making of Oklahoma City’s Transit Map

I recently had a pleasure of designing a system map for EMBARK, Oklahoma City’s transit agency. The network is being made both more frequent and more direct to meet a growing demand. Oklahoma City is often compared to Austin, Texas for their effort to re-imagine the state’s biggest city to be less car-depended and more human-scale and user-friendly. I’m proud to be a part of that evolution.

I didn’t want to move away from geographically-accurate representation completely, but rather settle somewhere in between: The map is not quite a GIS-overlay, but neither it is a subway-style diagrammatic map. This hybrid approach had already been deployed  by KickMap and CHK America elsewhere (see the map CHK America created for Spokane Transit). I wanted to replicate the simplicity and usability of those maps.

 Oklahoma City’s gridded geography naturally fits that format.

The map’s layout is based on a modular grid. Each module is about 100  points across, which roughly corresponds to the city’s one-mile mega block, which consists of regular-sized blocks bound by arterial roads:

Taking advantage of the existing geography, I started it out with 45 and 90-degree angles, but had to add additional increments to follow the geography more closely:

Because buses do not run on every street, it made sense to only label the transit streets and the streets leading up to them. Rest of geographic features were allowed to “fade away”: 

Finally, icons play a major role in calling out major destinations located along bus routes. Visually unified with the brand style, they work just as well at small sizes as they do at big sizes:

Download EMBARK system map brochure (PDF)

Transit Maps says:

I can’t believe I haven’t reblogged this already. Great overview of the process behind a new, stylish, modern, usable system map for a smaller transit agency.

My favourite thing – and something map designers need to always bear in mind – is the beautiful, simple icons used. Icons on a map often have to work at very small sizes, so each one needs its own distinctive “shape” to quickly differentiate between them. The “squint test” is always a good thing to do: print your icons out, put them a decent distance away and look at them through half-closed eyes. If you can still identify each icon’s basic shape or outline, you’re in business. If they all just start looking like a generic blob… it’s time to redesign and refine!

Submission – Official LYNX Light Rail Map, Charlotte, North Carolina

May 17, 2014
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Man, this map sure manages to make depicting one line a lot of hard work. Despite the simple diagrammatic style, stations are still cramped together so close towards the top of the map that the labels have to be randomly placed on either side of the route line, rather than being spaced far enough apart to place them all neatly on one side. The map doesn’t give enough geographical context to justify this “accurate” placement of stations, so even spacing would work much better. If needed, stations in the city centre could be spaced closer together than the outlying Park-n-Ride stations, but the spacing for each type should be even.

Why is the “Blue Line” label all the way over by I-77? What happens when I-77 meets I-485? Apparently, they just end. South Boulevard has a label, but no road. The prominent north pointer is actually not a lot of use, as the diagram doesn’t really conform to reality anyway. In the real world, the line runs almost directly north-south from Woodlawn all the way down to the I-485/South Boulevard station, rather than NE-SW as indicated here. But that would get in the way of the legend, so we get what we get…

Our rating: Not horrendous, but a few little tweaks could make it so much nicer. Two stars.

Source: City of Charlotte LYNX web page

Fantasy Future Map: Sydney, Australia by Thomas Mudgway

May 15, 2014
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Thomas, who is a ninth-grader (i.e., he’s just 14 or 15 years old), says:

Sydney, my home town, has around 4.7 million people and already has a commuter rail network, however, the city is growing, and the network doesn’t cover everything, so I have augmented the network in many places, as well as showing how it could grow into the currently undeveloped far south- and north-west (they are generally the places where the stations have no names, there simply aren’t currently any for them). It is show by the thick lines. Also represented by the thick lines is the long planned north-west rail link in light green/khaki. Additionally, the map shows bus rapid transitways and light rail in half thickness, some built, some planned, and some I propose. Finally, the map shows the intercity trains as far as the city limits in quarter thickness, as well as an extra express service from the planned Badgerys Creek Airport to the existing Kingsford-Smith airport and the city loop.

Transit Maps says:

Being a native Sydneysider myself, I can’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity of some of Thomas’ proposals for new lines. Yes, it’d be great if there was a rail line running up through the Northern Beaches (from the southern side of the harbour via The Spit, no less!), but the geography of the area means it’ll realistically never happen.

Pipe dreams aside, the map is really quite beautifully drawn, especially for someone so young. His dream system is extremely complex, but everything fits together nicely with a good information hierarchy and harmonious colours. He’s even indicated ferry routes, busways and the extended light rail system to produce a fully multi-modal vision, which is great to see.

This is very promising work from Thomas: keep it up!

Submission – Official Map: Bus Network of Göttingen, Germany, 2014

May 14, 2014
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Submitted by Hubert at the same time as the awful Marburg map. Of this map, Hubert says:

Check out the intertwined lines in the city center! I find this approach very interesting and useful and I would really like to hear your thoughts about this.

Transit Maps says:

The intertwined (or “candy-striped”) lines in the city centre are definitely the most interesting thing about this map. The rest of it is a competent, if unexciting, diagram of bus services. Executed better than the horror of the Marburg map, but nothing too brilliant to be seen. The light green colour of the suburb name labels should serve as a lesson to the Marburg map makers, though!

Then we get to the middle of town, and the designers start to combine lines that follow the same one-way routes through town to save some space. I’m not normally a big advocate of this approach, because it can make routes more difficult to trace from end to end, but it really works well here.

Why? Because the designers have grouped similar colours together for each “bundle” of routes. So you have a “blue” grouped route, and “green”, “pink/purple” and “brown”, which means tracing the routes through the city is actually pretty easy. Note also that the angle of the striping is not quite at 45 degrees, which means you get to see all the colours used when the route line is at 45 degrees. Nicely done!

Our rating: A pretty standard bus diagram until you get to the city centre, which is really quite excellent. Combined, the map turns out to be just a little better than average. Three stars.

Submission – Official Map: Bus Network of Marburg, Germany, 2014

May 12, 2014
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Submitted by Hubert, who says:

You really should review more ugly, messed up maps as they serve as deterrent examples. This eyesore of a map is what made me aware of the fact that transit map design is not as easy as it seems.

I once sat in line 7 and it took me twenty minutes to figure out whether the bus served the Elisabethkirche Station in my direction of travel. This is literally the worst transit map I’ve ever seen.

Transit Maps says:

It’s pretty hard to disagree with Hubert’s assessment of this map, which is a confusing, seething mass of route lines running at all sorts of random angles. Working out where some routes go in the central part of town is almost impossible, especially out of Elisabethkirche (as Hubert mentions), where some lines appear to head in both directions when they reach a T-junction just below that stop.

The labelling of suburbs/surrounding towns is poor: text badly aligned to heavy-handed grey boxes, which are jammed in wherever they’ll fit. The location of these labels also leads me to realise that the whole map is rotated so that east is at the bottom of the map (Cappel and Gisselberg are to the south of Marburg, not to the west). Being generous, this could align with a local’s view of the city, as it’s arranged along the banks of the north-south running River Lahn (not shown on the map), but would adding a north pointer for clarity really have been that hard?

For me, the map isn’t quite as bad as this one from Meiningen (although it bears a lot of similarities), but it’s pretty darn close. Ugly, technically deficient and almost entirely useless. 

Sidenote: Lines 1 through 20 (with some gaps), then Line 383? What’s that about?

Our rating: Still bad enough for no stars, even if it is just a teensy bit better than Meiningen’s dismal effort.

Source: Stadtwerk Marburg website

Quick Redesign: Denver RTD Light Rail Isometric Map

May 8, 2014
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Way back when, I posted a quick sketch of an concept Denver RTD light rail map that used 30-degree lines to give an isometric appearance to the map, based on the amazing Stuttgart U- and S-Bahn map, c. 2000. 

Now that I’ve finished with my “Highways of the USA” project, I’ve been able to find a few hours to turn that sketch into something a little more more finished. I didn’t want to spend too long on the map – doing it more as a light and fun “warm up” piece, rather than any serious finished article. So it’s a little rough around the edges, but works nicely as a proof of concept.

The interesting thing about an isometric map like this is that it’s actually easier to work with skewed and rotated rectangles for the line routes than the usual stroked paths: this is because the strokes won’t skew properly to give the required 30-degree end to a route line (an isometric map only uses angles that are 30 degrees above and below the horizontal).

While I feel that this treatment works well for the existing Denver rail system, further exploration revealed that it is utterly inappropriate for the near-future of all the FasTracks extensions. The I-225 line would take up way too much space with stations spaced too far apart if the isometric grid was adhered to, and the proliferation of commuter rail routes out of Union Station is almost impossible to convey with only a couple of viable angle options to work with. Any deviation away from the required 30-degree angles spoils the isometric illusion, but would almost certainly be necessary to fit some parts of the network together.

In short, a fun little design exercise that looks pretty nifty, but would be a dead end in the development of a “future-proof” map for Denver. 

Fantasy Map: “Metroplasm” — Official Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Poster

May 6, 2014
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Reblogged because Ghostbusters and subway map, duh.

g1988:

THIS THURSDAY, we will also release the newest screenprint from the official 30th Anniversary Ghostbusters Commemorative art project, “Metroplasm” by Anthony Petrie. This fan favorite Subway map is 24 x 36 inches, with around only 200 copies available online, and is even more impressive in person. 

The print will be released Thursday, May 8th, at 2 PM ET, 11 AM PT at this site:

http://shop.ghostbusters30th.com/products/anthony-petrie  

Some notes for purchasing:

1. We expect heavy traffic for this release, so make sure to refresh if you are running into trouble purchasing the print. Although we do expect to sell out quickly, many times prints will be released from peoples’ carts and continue to be available, even if it says “Sold Out” at a certain point. Don’t give up. As always, the best way to know the availability of the print during the release is on our Twitter account, @galleries1988.

2. Remember, if you have purchased a print at a standard shipping rate of $15 or higher, you are eligible for combined shipping. Choose that option during checkout, and your new print will be combined with an old order that you have purchased. We will hold these prints for up to 60 days, or you can email us at ghostbustersg1988@gmail.com to let us know you are finished. If you have any questions about your past orders, or combined shipping, feel free to email us as well.

3. A few orders of both the DKNG and the Mike Mitchell posters had to be cancelled (those people were alerted), so only a very small amount of those prints will be restocked. Much smaller than past instances.

And also remember, we will be opening the traveling Ghostbusters show in Los Angeles at G1988 (West) on May 17th. Every print online, and their limited variants, will be available in-store, along with even more prints, originals and limited edition t-shirts. Good luck!

Historical Map: Train and Tram Travel Times in Melbourne, Australia, c. 1920

May 5, 2014
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A handsome isochrone map produced by Melbourne’s Metropolitan Town Planning Commission to show the “minimum” (i.e., absolute best scenario) travel time into the city via suburban railways and tram lines. Some later additions to the network seem to have been pencilled in at the bottom right of the map.

Side note: Wikipedia’s article on isochrone maps includes the incredibly lazy assertion that “isochrone maps have been used in transportation planning since 1972 or earlier”, simply because that’s seemingly the earliest example the author could find to cite. This map, as well as this example from Manchester in 1914 (one hundred years ago!), clearly show that they’ve been used for this purpose for much longer. The moral of the story? Don’t trust everything you read on Wikipedia!

Source: Daniel Bowen/Flickr

Historical Map: The “Zéró” London Underground Diagram, 1938

April 29, 2014
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Although clearly based on the H.C. Beck diagram of the period (which was only five years old at the time), this diagram was created and printed entirely without Beck’s knowledge. Although the work is unsigned, it is now known that this map was designed by Hans Schleger – perhaps better known by his pseudonym “Zéró” – who had already created a number of memorable posters for London Transport.

Beck was furious, and he wasted no time in letting London Transport know exactly what he thought:

I have just happened to see a proof of a new Underground folder. The “H.C. Beck” diagram has been used, but with considerable and, I suggest, undesirable, alternations by another artist – one not on the staff – without reference to me.

The idea of redesigning the old geographical Underground map in diagram form was conceived by me in 1931; the original diagram, published in 1932 [sic: 1933] was of my own invention and design. Every variation of it since has been either made by me or by the lithographer under my supervision.

When I recently signed a form assigning the copyright of this design to the Board, it was not merely understood, but was promised, that I should continue to make, or edit and direct, any alterations that might have to be made to the design. This practice has been followed without exception since 1932.

I wish therefore to place on record my protest against the action taken in the present instance.

London Transport’s Publicity Officer, Christian Barman, managed to placate Beck, telling him that the new map was meant as an experiment in background shading only, and that “neither Mr. Patmore nor myself quite realised how far [the artist] had gone before we saw a proof.” His response, however, stopped short of assuring Beck that all future amendments to the map would be assigned to him…

As for the map itself, Beck’s assessment is pretty much spot on: the alterations are mostly undesirable. The graduated blue background – meant to highlight the central part of the map – is distracting and interferes with the legibility of type, especially when they are set in green type. The reversal of the Thames from white to blue where it cuts through this prototypical Zone 1 is also very visually distracting. 

However, the use of a single circle for interchange stations is actually far simpler than what Beck was using at the time – many stations had two circles, and Hammersmith used three! Beck would experiment with linked “Olympic Ring” circles and other arrangements before setting on the now familiar and ubiquitous “barbell” connector in 1946.

Also of note is the depiction of planned extensions to the Northern Line  that were never completed due to the outbreak of World War II.

Our rating: An evolutionary dead end in the development of the Tube Map, but also the first indication that Beck’s position as the map’s guardian wasn’t as solid as he liked to think. Three stars.

Source: bananastrudel on Etsy