Fantasy Map: New York Subway Map in the Style of Washington DC’s Metro Map by Chris Whong

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Fantasy Maps, Mash-Up Maps

Yes, it only shows Manhattan and The Bronx with small parts of Brooklyn and Queens, but this is still a pretty awesome mash-up. Aesthetically, it’s a dead ringer for the Washington, DC Metro map – big, fat route lines, the “double ring” interchange stations, green areas for parkland, etc. Nice work from Chris to mimic this style so closely!

While the map looks great, it really also shows how unsuited the bold, simplistic approach taken by the DC diagram is to a complex transit system like New York’s. Vital information that New Yorkers depend upon for daily travel is simply nowhere to be found: the distinction between local and express stations, for example, or any indication of those hugely important free transfers between certain stations. 

A few little errors that I see on a quick scan: the “A” and “L” lines are missing their terminus letter designation markers, and 42nd St/Port Authority has no station marker at all.

In the end, Chris probably made this because it seemed like a fun thing to do, and it’s certainly that and more. But it’s also very interesting to see that what works for one city doesn’t always work for another!

Source: Chris Whong’s website

Fantasy Map: In-Car Strip Map for Fictional Indianapolis “CITI” Red Line

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Fantasy Maps

A lesson in how not to add station labels to a strip map: type at five different angles makes things incredibly hard to read. Also not to be recommended for legibility is the all-caps treatment of station names.

This would work much better if the route line was pushed to the top of the strip, with all stations spaced equally and type set at one consistent angle across the entire diagram.

Source: A2DAC1985/Flickr

Aerial View of Manhattan with Subway/Rail Lines by Arnorian

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Unofficial Maps

arnorian:

A skyview of Manhattan with overlaid subway and rail lines. 7 Subway Extension, the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, and East Side Access included.

Another fantastic aerial photo/subway routes mash-up from Arnorian – a companion piece to this very popular piece that shows more of New York and New Jersey.

What I really like about this is that you can make out individual buildings and streets quite easily – the Empire State Building is immediately obvious, for example – placing all the lines shown in a very real and recognisable context. I can definitely relate many of the locations that I visited on my trip to New York a few years ago to this view, which is kind of cool. 

Historical Map: AC Transit Route Map, 1967

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Historical Maps

Sweet illustrated map of bus routes in the East Bay, including a multitude of transbay services: I count 16 crossing the Bay Bridge to San Francisco!

As with all maps of this ilk, the fun part is finding all the little details in the illustrations that are liberally scattered throughout (My favourite is probably the sailor who is busily chatting up the cute nurse at the top centre of the map). The subtle painted texture of the mountains at the top of the map is also rather lovely.

Although quite whimsical in execution, the map actually conveys a lot of useful information as well: local, intercity and transbay services are all differentiated by colour; rush-only services are denoted by a square route box, rather than a circle. Different zones are also shown simply and efficiently by simple line across a route: the zone numbers are placed on the relevant side of that line. Effective, but not overpowering.

Our rating: Lovely late 1960s design. Lots of fun to be had poring over this one. Four stars!

Source: shanan/Flickr

Tutorial: Creating Multiple Parallel Route Lines using Art Brushes

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Last week’s tip about using the Offset Path command in Illustrator to create multiple parallel paths was very well received, but reader Leah left a comment saying that she finds using Art Brushes quicker and easier. If nothing else, it’s good to be reminded that there are always different ways to achieve the same result! 

Setting up an Art Brush for what we want to do is actually pretty simple. Simply create a short section of the setup you’d like to use as a brush – in the first picture, I’ve got three parallel 8-point lines, spaced 10 points apart (exactly the same as last week’s example).

With these three paths selected, simply choose “New Brush” from the Brush palette’s flyout menu, or click on the “New Brush” icon at the bottom of the palette. When Illustrator asks you what type of brush you’d like to create, choose “Art Brush”.

In the resulting dialog box, give your new brush a descriptive name, and make sure the Brush Scale Option is set to “Stretch to Fit Stroke Length”. Finally make sure that the arrow that’s overlaid on your artwork in the little preview window runs along the length of your lines. Click “OK” and your Art Brush is ready to go!

Applying it to your path couldn’t be easier, as shown in the second image. Simply select your path, click on your newly-created brush in the Brushes palette and – hey presto! Note, however, that this is still one path that is styled with the Art Brush to look like multiple paths. To make three separate editable paths (which you’ll almost certainly have to do, as the routes will eventually go in different directions), you’ll need to select the path and choose Object menu > Expand Appearance. And this is where my (minor) problem with this technique lies.

As the last image shows, the original path had just three anchor points: one at each end, and one in the middle. When I offset this path in last week’s tutorial, the new paths also had just three anchor points – nice, clean, easily editable artwork. When we expand the Art Brush-styled path, it creates a lot of extra anchor points – over 20 on each path in  my example! This is not my idea of clean artwork, even though it looks much the same as the offset paths.

In the end, the two techniques produce very similar results – offsetting paths takes a little longer, but (in my opinion) makes cleaner finished art. The Art Brush technique is easier to set up and allows you to have an arsenal of brushes at hand for different numbers of parallel route lines, but it makes a bit of a mess behind the scenes. Both are valid approaches to the problem: it’s up to you to decide which suits your needs best!

Happy Christmas 2013 from Transit Maps!

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Mash-Up Maps

Wishing you all a happy and safe holiday season! Thanks to all of you – readers,contributors, rebloggers, retweeters, and lurkers – for another rewarding year at the helm of Transit Maps. I really couldn’t do it without you!

All the best,

Cameron

Photo: This Is Not A Tube Map!

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Miscellany

Although it seems as though at least one person thought it was…

Source: Dave Gorman/Flickr

Unofficial Map: Toilet Map for Stockholm Metro Travellers by Pruek Lawchaiyapruek, 2013

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Unofficial Maps, Visualizations

A light-hearted and off-beat map/infographic for you today – one that shows the distance, type and cost of public toilets near metro stations in Stockholm, Sweden. Hopefully, the map was not borne out of Pruek’s inability to find a facility when in dire need!

The graphic is nicely put together, and functions well as both a (simple) transit map and an informational graphic. It has one of the nicest examples of “candy-striping” the route lines that I’ve seen in a while where the Red and Green lines share track. I’m not normally a big fan of this approach, but it works very nicely here.

The use of line length and colour-coding to denote distance to the toilet of your choice is really nice, giving two visual indicators for this very important piece of information. The one thing I’m pretty certain the graphic doesn’t do is indicate which direction to go to find the toilet, which could be a problem for people unfamiliar with the area who really, really need to go! Maybe a small arrow pointing the way could work, although that might be hard to integrate with such a schematic diagram. There’s certainly plenty of white space in the graphic to work on a solution.

The icons for each type of facility are nicely done, and the price indicator (open, half-filled and filled circles for each price point) is very intuitive. I’m not entirely sure I agree with the decision to flip the icons vertically when they’re under a distance line: it looks a little strange to me.

And is it just me, or does the second icon for a “stand alone toilet” look like a dead ringer for the TARDIS?

Source: Pruek’s portfolio website – link no longer active

Infographic: Circle Loop Lines of the World by Matthew Lew

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Very aesthetically appealing infographic that compares 18 circle railway lines from around the world. The top part of the graphic displays the lines in a schematic fashion, representing each by its average diameter. The stations that comprise each line are then simply spaced evenly around the circumference to create a very striking pattern. Stations that interchange with other lines are represented by placing a small white dot in the centre of a station’s marker.

Below, information about each line – the number of stations, number of interchanges with other lines, the line’s length and radius, etc. – is displayed, along with a list of all the stations that make up each line. The colour-coding of the lines is designed to create a pleasing visual effect –working its way in order through the colour spectrum – rather than using each line’s “traditional” colour from their respective maps. While this is an understandable design choice, it’s still a little weird to see London’s Circle Line represented by a lovely shade of lime green.

For those who can’t quite make it out, the Circle lines represented (in ascending order of diameter) are:

  • Miami, Florida
  • Charleroi, Belgium 
  • Detroit, Michigan 
  • Glasgow, Scotland
  • Oslo, Norway
  • Moscow, Russia
  • Osaka, Japan
  • Madrid, Spain (Line 6);
  • London, England (technically a spiral now, rather than a true loop)
  • Nagoya, Japan
  • Beijing, China (Line 2)
  • Shanghai, China
  • Tokyo, Japan
  • Delhi, India
  • Berlin, Germany
  • Madrid, Spain (Line 12 – MetroSur)
  • Seoul, South Korea
  • Beijing, China (Line 10)

Overall, this graphic looks great and provides an interesting, easily digestible, comparison between all these loop railroads. It would be interesting to see a version that plotted the actual routes and stations accurately against each other, rather than this heavily stylised view.

Source: Matthew Lew’s Behance portfolio

High-Resolution Scan of 1988 Amsterdam Transit Map!

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Historical Maps

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my readers?

I posted about this map last Monday, praising its visual clarity, but also lamenting the fact that I didn’t have a higher resolution version of it to really savour the details.

Almost immediately, I got a submission from Alain Lemaire, who generously sent me full high-resolution scans of the whole map from his personal collection. He provided me with four separate scans, one for each quadrant of the map (which is obviously too big to scan in one piece), which I have simply combined them into one big file (4325 × 4653px, 6MB) in Photoshop – click on the image above to view it.

Alain has this to say about the map:

In my opinion, this map is a diagrammatic beauty, but pretty much rendered useless outside the city center because of the lack of bus stop labels and a geographic backdrop. Might have been the reason why GVB decided to drop this beauty and put the current – rather bland but more practical – design in place which does not feature any stop labels at all but does have a clear geographic backdrop. That way at least you do have a reference point for using the map. Maybe Hans van der Kooi could tell you more about the history and eventual decommissioning of this map.

As far as the colour coding goes, Van der Kooi used colour and line width to show which lines go where: thick red for all tram and thin red for all bus lines to the central station and main transit hub in Amsterdam, thick green for trams on the inner ring route along the city center, thick yellow for ‘other’ tram routes and thin yellow, green, blue and purple for all other bus routes. It seems to me he used yellow for most lines terminating at Sloterdijk station, which served as a second transit hub in the late 1980s. All regional bus lines are shown in black and white. For comparison: the current official map uses colour only to distinguish between tram, bus, peak bus and regional bus. Not of much use if you want to easily determine where your line is heading.

Source: Alain Lemaire via email