Made as a wedding gift for two transit nerd friends, this is beautiful work. The artist wasn’t content with just Zone 1 or a simplification: this is the whole map, including the DLR and the Overground with their distinctive white centre-stroked route lines.
Click here to view the entire set of photos on Flickr, including lots of work-in-progress shots. Simply stunning!
Source: moorina/Flickr
BART’s “Official Unofficial” Map now on the Wikimedia Commons
For those Inkscape users, David Sindel has let me know that he’s converted BART’s Adobe Illustrator file to .svg and has uploaded the file to Wikimedia. Although the PNG preview looks kind of weird, David assures me that the actual .svg is fine.
Showing the then-proposed extension to Sunderland, which opened in 2002.
Interestingly, the 60-degree angled section running through Newcastle is flipped the other way compared to the current map (Nov. 2011, 3.5 stars). I’d say the change was mainly made to accommodate the Calvert typeface used on the modern day map: it’s far more attractive than the Futura Condensed on display here, but a lot wider. Without the flip, the labels for South Gosforth and Four Lane Ends stations on the current version would almost certainly clash.
Source: metromadme/Flickr
In a move I’d like to see more often from transit agencies, San Francisco’s BART has a fully-editable “non-official” version of their system map available for download from their site. It has a Creative Commons license, meaning that you simply have to attribute the original map to BART and it’s free to use, commercially or otherwise.
Mainly designed for app and third-party website developers who need a BART map, it’s also great for those learning to create transit maps. You can simply open it up in Adobe Illustrator and edit to your heart’s content. While the file is saved in the Illustrator-native .ai format, and not the open-standard .svg format, it should be openable in the open-source vector-editing application, Inkscape.
The map itself is reminiscent of the official map with its distinctive “hexagonal” form, but is different enough to stand alone, which is exactly what BART intends. They really don’t want their official, copyrighted map used by third party applications and websites (which might imply BART endorsement where there is none), so they offer this alternative instead.
Personally, I’m not crazy about the green type used for transfer stations, and I wish the background coastline was editable vector artwork instead of a background raster image file. But hey — if you don’t like it, now you can edit it yourself and make it better!
Source: BART website via Kurt Raschke
Note: Spoilers, sweetie! Both on the map and in my text!
For those people who just have to know the order that things happen in, this is the map for you!
Created by a designer at Doctor Who Online, this all looks pretty plausible to me, although I don’t lie awake at night wondering about temporal paradoxes and crossing one’s own time stream. It even includes River’s appearances in related video games and Season 6 DVD-exclusive mini-episodes, as well as untelevised adventures like the infamous “Jim the Fish”.
The one thing I would add is a line from River’s death in the Library (Forest of the Dead with the 10th Doctor) to her (final?) appearance in The Name of the Doctor, as it’s her data ghost that is stored in the Library after her death that appears in that episode.
Putting my obvious fanboy love of this map aside, it is nice to see the subway map metaphor used intelligently here: the “interchanges” between “routes” (River’s and the Doctor’s separate time streams) actually mean something and help to visually explain a very complex narrative. That it also ends up looking like a big ball of timey-wimey stuff is an added bonus.
Source: Doctor Who Online – click through to see a much bigger (legible) version of the map.
Yes, I post a lot about the DC Metro Map, but it’s not often we get to see the process of developing a transit map as publicly as this, or in such immense detail. I find it fascinating to see the decisions that are made, the different iterations the map goes through, and what is kept and what gets discarded.
Pretty much the only thing up for discussion on this final draft is the shape of the station indicators when there are three route lines present: “whiskers” or “capsule”. I’ve deftly added a “whisker” indicator into the detail part of the map above for easy comparison.
To my mind, the elongated capsule shape is more successful, and is a logical extension of the normal circle shape used to indicate a station. I’d like to see the capsule extend out a little further into the Blue and Orange lines: it barely grazes them at the moment, and isn’t consistent with the amount of overlap you can see when a circle station overlaps two lines, like at Pentagon City – half the circle is on blue, half is on yellow. Similarly, when the symbol is over three lines, half the circle should be on orange and half on blue, joined by the straight edges of the capsule over the Silver Line.
Speaking of the Silver Line, the decision to move it between the Blue and Orange lines is to be applauded. Previous drafts had it sitting above the Orange Line, which necessitated a very clumsy crossover between the Stadium-Armory and Benning Road stations. Having the crossover at East Falls Church instead is visually simpler and cleaner.
Apparently the route lines are now also “24% thinner” than before: looks like Lance Wyman is very grudgingly giving in to the fact that the playfully thick lines of the original map are no longer suitable for this modern version.
Also, there’s parkland shown along the Anacostia River… that’s a first!
Another step in the right direction, I think. Slowly and surely, this map is getting there…
Source: Plan It Metro website
Even though I’m mainly a print designer, I’ve done enough web design work to know how fiddly (yet also powerful) Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be. That’s why I’m totally in awe of this incredibly accurate rendition of the Tube Map, created with nothing but code by John Galatini. Not one image file to be seen! Johnston Sans is recreated with a web font, while the symbols for accessibility, National Rail, ferries, the Emirates Airline, etc. seen on the map are all “drawn” completely with CSS code. John estimates that the project took around 120 hours to complete, and I can believe him!
While the project’s website gives some great technical information on how the map was achieved, I prefer John’s own description on Twitter:
“It’s basically lots of rectangles and squares, lots of border-radius (to create circles) and a shit load of css rotation.”
Our rating: An astounding example of what CSS can do. Five stars!
Source: CSS Tube website – link no longer active
Submitted by Ryan, who says:
Chicago’s updated CTA map. The Red Line is closed for 5 months between Cermak/Chinatown and 95th so there are now shuttle buses shown along with Red rerouting along green. Green also has a new Rush Hour route around the loop. A new transfer is also shown between Red and Blue at Lake and Washington (although this transfer requires a person to leave the station and walk a couple blocks to the other).
What do you think?
Transit Maps says:
Aesthetically, there’s very little difference between this map and the version I reviewed way back in October 2011 (3 stars): everything that was good abut that version still holds true, and its faults remain much the same as well.
However, as a prompt informational update for what promises to be a difficult few months for “L” riders in Chicago’s south, the map works effectively. The affected section of the Red Line is clearly shown, as is the rerouting of the southern leg of the Red Line along the Ashland Branch of the Green Line. Bus shuttle services that replace much of the Dan Ryan branch’s operations are also indicated, although an idea of service frequency for these buses would be nice — do the buses run as frequently as the trains used to, should riders allow extra travel time, that sort of thing.
The real test of this map will be its deployment, I feel. It’s probably unrealistic to expect every “L” map in Chicago to be replaced by this temporary version, so it’s important that this map is put in places where the highest number of affected riders will see it and understand the changes to the system.
Source: Transit Chicago (CTA) website
An attractive and stylish route map on the side of a handsome red double-decker bus. While the service from Bury to Colchester via Bures carries a single route number (753), you actually have to change buses in Sudbury, hence the “double dot” shown there. The timetable on the bus company’s website warns that because of congestion, connections between the two buses at Sudbury may not always be timely.
The second line shown from Sudbury to Colchester via Nayland is actually a separate route, the 84. Handy information if you miss your connection to the Colchester leg of the 753, I guess…
While this bus looks fantastic, the same can’t be said for the H.C. Chambers & Son website, which is completely craptacular.
Source: routemaster2217/Flickr
A harrowing image from the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, built in the 1970s to house workers for the ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear plant. Pripyat lies just a few scant kilometres from the plant, and was permanently evacuated within two days of the disaster in 1986.
Within the ruins of the city’s bus station is this surprisingly intact map of services offered within the local region. Pripyat is the fourth station from the top along the right edge of the map, just above the horizontal line that runs through the map. The town of Chernobyl (which is further from the plant than Pripyat) is the next stop to the south along the red route line.
Source: Matt. Create. (Roads Less Traveled)/Flickr
