Submission – Official Historical Map: MBTA Map in Chinese, c. 1985

January 30, 2014
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Submitted by Randy Wong, who says:

The MBTA map in Chinese characters. These used to be posted at the Orange Line Chinatown T-stop, and also at a few of the other lines that intersected/were near Chinese speakers. There are lots of Chinese who live near Malden, Oak Grove, Chinatown, Forest Hills, Quincy, and Quincy Center T-stops, though I don’t recall which stops actually had Chinese T maps.

Transit Maps says:

Nice localisation of the classic “T” spider map to benefit an ethnic community in Boston. Dating these old Boston maps is always a challenge, so I’m just going to say it’s somewhere around 1985, when the Arborway part of the “E” branch of the Green Line was closed.

Submission – Official Map: Metro de Medellin, Colombia, 2014

January 30, 2014
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Submitted by Daniel Echeverri, who says:

Medellin (Colombia) transit map. Downloaded from the official website of Metro de Medellin. It shows Metro Lines, Articulated Buses lines (Metroplus) and Aerial Tram lines (Metro Cable)

Transit Maps says:

Medellin’s transit system is fascinating because it’s one of the first places in the world to implement aerial gondolas as part of a mass transit system. Other cities may have gondolas and aerial trams, but they’re almost always deployed as tourist attraction, like London’s Emirates Air Line. Medellin’s CableMetro reaches up to areas clinging to the sides of the steep valley that the city lies in that are unreachable by traditional forms of transit, linking seamlessly to the main Metro lines at the bottom of the cables.

However, the map’s not anywhere as interesting as the system. It looks like it draws its inspiration from the Los Angeles Metro map – it has a very similar aesthetic and also uses DIN as its primary font – but it’s nowhere near as well executed as that map, having a whole host of technical issues.

There’s an inexplicable kink in the “K” MetroCable line, while the “L” line just heads off at its own unique angle. Similarly, the “1” bus route has an awful kink as it heads north out of the Industriales interchange station that could easily have been avoided with a little thought (making the river slightly wider, perhaps?).

The “1” and “2” bus lines are drawn terribly, with odd gaps between them when they run parallel to each other, and as they go around corners together. Line 2 has “stops” – as opposed to “stations” – indicated by hash marks along part of its route: they’re both way too big and extremely ugly. In contrast, the circular station markers are so small as to almost be invisible. The marker for San Pedro station has a red outline to indicate that it’s currently closed: this is almost impossible to make out.

Finally, the lines under construction are very poorly drawn, with the dashed lines doubling over each other as the routes go around corners. It’s difficult to tell where the Tranvia Ayacucho (a new streetcar/tram service) ends and the two new MetroCable lines begin, and there’s a whole new set of kinks and weird angles here as well.

Our rating: A fascinating transit system, let down by an extremely average and technically deficient map. Could be so much more. One-and-a-half stars.

Source: Official Metro de Medellin website – link no longer active

Photo: Handy-Dandy BART Map in a Pen

January 27, 2014
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See also this pen map from Seoul, South Korea.

Source: Wired Maps/Instagram

Historical Map: Tactile/Braille Map of the Washington DC Metro, 1988

January 24, 2014
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A tactile map designed by J.W. Wiedel for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education.

Tactile surfaces on the map reveal information about the Metrorail system for vision-impaired users, including whether stations have side or centre platforms (more information than can be found on the official map) and transfer stations. It’s hard to make out, but braille text is also included for major stations and areas. Each route line also appears to have a unique texture so that one can be distinguished from another easily. It’s easiest to see this with the Yellow Line in the legend, where a tactile dotted line can be discerned.

We talk about making maps accessible for colour-blind users a lot, but we don’t often discuss how to make transit accessible for completely blind or heavily vision-impaired users. Maps like this are a great tool for such users, but seem to be pretty few and far between.

Note also the “missing” parts of the system that haven’t been built yet: no Green Line at all, Yellow Line only goes to Gallery Place, etc.

Source: Library of Congress, via Ghosts of DC

Submission – Unofficial Map: Philadelphia SEPTA Rapid Transit System

January 23, 2014
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Submitted by Henry, who says:

Hi, my name is Henry, and I’m a senior in high school.  I made this map of Philadelphia’s rapid transit services (mostly SEPTA but including PATCO). This is the first transit map I’ve made, for my home city, Philadelphia, a map which I know you have much distaste for.

I know it has several problems (alignment mostly I think) but I think it’s a huge improvement over what’s there now. I consciously made the decision to eliminate the entire Regional Rail network from the map and only include the connections, so I could flesh out the Trolley lines, which are not featured on the original map. I hope you’ll think that overall it represents a better designed improvement over the original. I love this city and anybody that knows it well knows that it’s a fantastic and underrated city, and I can only hope that maybe if it had a better map maybe some people’s perception would change.

Transit Maps says:

I definitely agree with Henry’s thoughts on the importance of a good transit map in shaping people’s opinions about transit in a city. And his map is a good, solid effort as well. It fits nicely into a compact shape and deals well with the huge number of stops/stations found on the 101/102 trolley lines and the Norristown Line. The “dotted line” interchange marker used to indicate a pedestrian connection is intuitive and nicely executed – certainly better than the yellow interchange/dashed connecting line used on the official map (Dec. 2011, 1.5 stars). I even quite like the cutesy little “Liberty Bell” north pointer.

About the only problem I really have with this map is the way the subway-surface trolley lines are drawn. In real life, Lines 10, 11, 13, 34 and 36 all start at the 13th Street station and travel together through the Market Street tunnel, emerging to the surface at the western end and spreading out to their eventual destinations. Thus, a user of this map should be able to easily and intuitively trace their path from 13th Street all the way along their desired route to the end point. On Henry’s map, this just isn’t possible for most of the lines.

The 10 just needs a little curve where it joins onto the main trunk line to indicate that southbound trolleys turn east toward the Market Street tunnel. Line 34 is fine as it is, but the 11, 13 and 36 all join onto the 34 at a counter-intuitive angle that suggests they all head out to Angora, rather than heading back towards the city. It would work much better if the 13 headed directly towards the 40th Street station (as it does in real life), with the 11 and 36 then joining onto it near there.

Still, there’s a lot to like about this map: an very solid effort, especially from someone still in high school.

Transit “Map” Fare Card from Tbilisi, Georgia

January 23, 2014
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transporteconomics:

Having seen @transitmaps’ post with the Japanese travelcard reminded me to post the MetroMoney card I got in Tbilisi, Georgia. The drawings show different modes of transport available in the city (metro, bus, minibus (marshrutka)) and have absolutely no resemblance to the actual metro network, which consists of two lines.

Figuring out all the labels is not too easy – if you happen to speak Georgian, share them in the comments below. However, I did look at the large letters: Metromani and the top-centre smaller label: Gagarin square – which is not even a metro station. Dear readers, please do not use this card for orientation. I warned you.

Another transit map-themed fare card, this one from Tbilisi, the capital of the Caucasian country of Georgia. However, it’s important to note that – unlike the Japanese Passnet card – this is not a map at all, but stylised illustrations of a Metro train (centre), a bus (top left), and a mini bus (top right).

Weird: The Maryland Transit Administration’s Version of the DC Metro Map

January 22, 2014
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Not only is the map out of date (no Rush+, no indication of the Silver Line at all), but the MTA has simply encased the official DC map in their own branding shell and then covered it in hideous and distracting callout boxes denoting their own commuter bus services. Yes, it performs a service, but – dear God! – is it ever ugly.

There should be a law against this kind of thing.

Source: Maryland Transit Administration’s transit maps web page

Tutorial: Using Illustrator or Photoshop to Check Your Design for Colour-Blind Accessibility

January 21, 2014
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Here’s a simple little trick that works in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS4 and above: You can quickly check your artwork to see how it might appear for a colour-blind user by simply going to the View menu > Proof Setup, then choosing one of the two colour-blind profiles at the bottom of the list. Then select View > Proof Colors (Cmd/Ctrl-Y in Photoshop).

As you can see from the GIF above, the results can be quite startling: everything becomes varying shades of blue and an ugly, muddy yellow. It definitely shows why identification of different routes (either by naming them directly on the map, or by using a clear legend) is so important. Another thing to bear in mind is the contrast between parallel route lines: more contrast means that they are easier to trace from end to end with a minimum of confusion, regardless of the user’s vision.

I definitely recommend adding this simple test to your workflow: it may not be completely accurate for every variation of colour-blindness, but it will give you a quick overview so that your design can be better informed.

See also this post from November 2011, where I compared the colour-blindness accessibility of different transit maps.

Edit: An earlier version of this post only mentioned proofing in Photoshop, neglecting the fact you can do the exact same thing in Illustrator. Thanks to Oran Viriyincy and Xavier Fung for reminding me about this.

Official Map: Southern Vectis Bus Map, Isle of Wight, England, 2014

January 21, 2014
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An attractively drawn map that bridges the gap between geographical representation and a diagram rather nicely. While the shape of the island is quite accurate (if simplified slightly), all the roads have been straightened out to remove unnecessary kinks and twists. The routes are clearly marked and major stops are shown efficiently. The map is also supported on-line by town maps for the destinations shown in larger type, so there’s more detail where it’s needed. There’s even some lovely icons for points of interest, such as Carisbrooke Castle, Osborne House and the famous steam railway.

No, the map doesn’t show every bus stop: but I’ve never really had a problem with that for bus route maps where it can generally be assumed that stops are fairly evenly spaced – although closer together in more urban areas, and farther apart in rural/outlying areas. The map gives a good idea about destinations that can be reached along each route: a timetable would then handle the fine detail.

About the only real problem I have with this map is its delivery method. While the map can be downloaded as a PDF from Southern Vectis’ website, this is actually a low-resolution JPG (complete with ugly compression artifacts) that has been resaved in PDF format from Photoshop. The map is really quite lovely, so it’s very disappointing to see that good work being shared in this manner. It degrades the crisp, clean look of the map and means that it is not able to be enlarged to any great degree without being pixelated. Nor is the text on the map searchable in any way, or accessible to vision-impaired users – being simply an image.

Sidenote: Interestingly, while “Vectis” has the ring of one of those fancy newfangled transit company names (much like “Arriva”), its use as the name for this bus company dates back to 1927. The name “Vectis” itself is much older, being the name that the ancient Romans gave to the island when they invaded around 43AD.

Our rating: Great map, poor delivery. Three stars.

Source: Southern Vectis website