Submission – Tokyo Metro Rail Diagram by Sergio Mejia

November 2, 2020
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Submitted by Sergio, who says:

So I always wanted to design a diagram for Tokyo, but since it’s so complex I’d postponed it several times until one week that I had nothing to do I started tackling it from scratch, using pen and paper before moving to Affinity Designer. I chose to design a map that includes both Tokyo Metro and Toei Metro, as well as one of the main train lines and the Shinkansen services that arrive to the city. In the end I even put the Chuo Sobu Line from a recommendation a Japanese person made to my design.

Transit Maps says:

Like the London Underground and the New York Subway, making an unofficial map or diagram of Tokyo’s rail network is almost an obligatory rite of a passage for budding designers (perhaps even more so than the other two, because there’s no one “definitive version” of Tokyo’s map). Sergio’s is a particularly handsome effort, though perhaps with a few usability/design issues.

First off, I really like the way that Sergio has used the Toei Oedo Line as his main compositional element, forming a lovely distinctive symmetrical shape in the middle of the diagram that everything else relates to in much the same way that the London Underground diagram uses the Circle Line, which even forms a similar “thermos flask” shape. Most other Tokyo maps I see use the Yamanote Line for this purpose (which make sense as it encircles the city) but this can often make the central part of the map seem too cramped. It does mean that the Yamanote Line on Sergio’s map takes a slightly wobbly path (I’m not entirely convinced by the detour it takes around Shibuya), but I think it’s a decent trade-off. The spacing of stations throughout the map is even and harmonious, and the whole thing, title and legend included, feels like a well-designed, unified whole. On a complex diagram like this, labels cutting across route lines are hard to avoid, but I think Sergio has done a good job of making such labels look clean and deiberate.

I do think that the station codes are too small to be read easily, especially when they’re set in lighter colours (tiny yellow numbers on a white background!). These codes are a primary part of station identification in Tokyo, so reducing their importance so much on a map seems counter-productive. This problem also rolls over into line identification, because these tiny codes are currently the only link between the lines as named in the legend and the map itself. As always, this is especially problematic for colour-blind users.

Indicating that some of the lines offer through-running services to the Greater Tokyo area is a good idea in theory, but where do the lines actually go? An unlabelled dashed line doesn’t really tell anyone very much. As a comparison, the named Shinkansen destinations make those lines much more useful.

Our final word: A well-balanced and attractive diagram of a complex network, though the tiny station codes seem like they’ve been sacrificed for the sake of that aesthetic.

Submission – Unofficial Map: Bus Map of Boulder, Colorado by Stavros R.

October 29, 2020
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Submitted by Stavros, who says:

Hello, I just discovered your website, and I want to submit a bus transit map I made last year for the city of Boulder, CO. I hope you consider reviewing it on the blog and letting me know what I can change.

In an effort to improve quality of service, the City of Boulder has taken over and invested heavily in a few select bus routes. As a result, the city has a network of lines with BRT-like frequency on top of a network that is more focused on commuters. There are also a few seasonal high frequency routes catered for university students, and for people trying to visit public amenities like parks with minimal parking.

Transit Maps says:

I quite like this, Stavros – there’s a strong European quality to it with the large rounded-edge station rectangles and generous spacing between parallel route lines. Everything’s nice and evenly spaced and the labelling is generally good, though there’s a few too many diagonal labels for my liking. The spacing between the labels and their corresponding station symbol could be made a bit more consistent throughout: sometimes the label seems to be floating by themselves (see the stops on Lehigh down the bottom left of the map).

Normally, if you’re using the visual device of a route line passing above a station marker to mean “does not stop here”, it’s a good idea to call that out specifically in the legend, as it can be a little ambiguous (as it is visually stronger than the lines that pass beneath the marker, it can seem more important on first reading).

Similarly, when a route line passes through one of the larger station rectangles, I think it’s important to always keep it in the same relative position when it emerges on the other side. It’s harder for a user to trace a route line through a station if it keeps moving around visually. This is especially important if the line changes direction at the station!

After that, it’s just some minor things: the city boundary is a bit rough here and there, especially the slight off-kilter angle it takes next to the legend box down the bottom left. The route number boxes at terminating stops should really all be slightly separated from each other to improve legibility. The legend itself could have more consistent spacing between its headers and subsequent content.

Side note: The frequent service routes are called Hop, Skip, Jump, Bound, and Dash? Now that’s taking a theme and running with it (pun totally intended).

Historical Map: Proposed Mass Transit System, Milwaukee WI, 1948

October 27, 2020
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Milwaukee dreaming big in the last days of rail-based mass transit in that city. I can’t find many specifics about this plan, though I do know that the City was attempting to purchase the transit lines in Milwaukee from its private operators at the time, so this study may have something to do with that.

On this map, the thin black lines represent local services, probably a mix of diesel bus, “trackless trolley” and streetcar lines at this point in time. The thick black lines show the Speedrail lines to Waukesha and Hales Corner, the last remnants of a once-extensive electric interurban system. A series of horrific crashes on the Speedrail in 1949 and 1950 spelled the end of these interurban lines, and they closed permanently in 1951.

The green lines are noted as “express lines” in the legend, although the mode of transit to be employed is not noted here. Possibly trolleybuses or upgraded legacy streetcar lines?

Not shown is the North Shore Line that ran between Milwaukee and Chicago, probably because the City was not attempting to purchase that line.

Source: UWM Libraries

Submission: Pixies/Throwing Muses Subway Map by Brian

October 23, 2020
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Submitted by Brian, who says:

A few years back I made a quick sketch for my friend showing the relationships between Pixies and Throwing Muses and their associated bands. For her recent birthday I made this subway map version for her, because, of course I did. Who doesn’t want a subway map for their birthday?

Transit Maps says:

Any resemblance to my mid-1990s CD collection is entirely coincidental, I assure you!

I like this, Brian – the subway map design metaphor is appropriately employed for once, but you’ve also given a nice designery pop-art feel to the piece as well. I particularly like the interplay between the warm “Pixies” and cool “Throwing Muses” colours across the map, and the interconnected “engagement” rings for Kristen Hersh and Fred Abong are a really nice touch as well.

I’m off to listen to Surfer Rosa now, I think.

Official Map: New York MTA Real-Time Digital Subway Map, 2020

October 20, 2020
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The MTA released a beta version of a new online real-time subway map this morning, supposedly a fusion between the design sensibilities of the Vignelli diagram and the modern subway map’s geographical pragmatism. There’s certainly been a big PR push, with effusive articles being written about it and even a mini-documentary film by Gary Huswit of Helvetica fame. With all this hoopla, I had to go investigate myself… and I came away unimpressed.

First things first: the map is as slow as heck in Chrome on my iMac, and barely works at all in Safari, neither of which are particularly encouraging starts. It does run somewhat better on mobile, but we’ll have to see if the speed on desktop computers improves over the next few days, as it’s not really usable at present.

The main selling point of this map is that it has the clarity of a diagram but the fidelity of a geographical map – “The best of both worlds!” the articles happily proclaimed this morning – but the reality is more like “Jack of all trades; master of none.” As much as I try, I simply can’t see any real benefit to this approach.

A geographical base map is meant to give veracity to the data layers above it, grounding them in the real world. And this is true – for the station locations, which are fairly accurately placed. However, the paths the subway lines take between these points often bear no relation to the base map, or even reality. Let’s take a look at the services that travel across the Manhattan Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn – the B, D, N and Q. Because of the simplified paths drawn, the B and D completely miss the bridge – clearly shown on the base layer underneath it – and seem to cross the river in a new, previously undiscovered tunnel. And inexplicably, the N and Q don’t cross the river anywhere near the Manhattan Bridge, but continue all the way down to lower Manhattan and apparently share the same tunnel as the 4 and 5 to get to Brooklyn! The station order is correct – Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue – but the route taken on the map to get there is sheer insanity.

This kind of stuff appears randomly all over the map: some lines follow the roads that they’re aligned to in real life fairly faithfully, while others stair-step their way to their destination like a 90-degree-angle-only diagram. All of the lines down to Coney Island are treated differently and it’s a visual nightmare. In real life, it’s a straight shot from Brighton Beach to Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue – look what the diagram does:

Quite frankly, there’s really no reason for this map to be diagrammatic at all outside of Manhattan – which, owing to its famous grid forms a diagram naturally. Most of the lines out in the boroughs follow a road (either elevated or dug cut-and-cover), so why not just follow them accurately and honour the base map? It’d be a more consistent approach than the “sometimes but not always” approach that’s currently been taken.

Next, let’s consider the design language of the diagram, which has fairly obviously been cribbed straight from the modern iteration of the Vignelli diagram. However, because the diagram is placed on a sprawling geographical base map instead of being a compact schematic, all the elements render too small at all but the most zoomed-in levels. The route lines are thin, the station dots are too small and the itty-bitty letters that designate services at each station are almost completely impossible to read. And once you zoom in close enough to be able to see these properly, you lose the ability to read the whole map in order to work out connections. It’s really not great, usability-wise.

There’s technical problems too: parallel 45-degree curves don’t nest properly, some route lines appear slightly on top of others at certain zoom levels, some stations sit directly on changes of direction, corner radii are inconsistently applied (and missing altogether in many locations, despite a big deal being made about the “smooth curves” present in the map). This is stuff only a wonk like me notices, but it still leaves an unfavourable first impression.

That said, the way the map can display real-time train information and adapt on the fly to service changes is certainly very impressive, as is the way more or less information is displayed depending on the zoom level. I particularly like the way that the individual service lines roll up into single trunk lines at the most zoomed-out views. It seems to me that the technology behind the map is pretty solid and is the real “revolutionary” part of this service, but the presentation of it definitely needs some polishing and refinement, because this is pretty poor and inconsistent at the moment.

Source: MTA Live Subway Map

Historical Map: Tokyo Subway Map, 1963

October 17, 2020
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A scanned slide showing a section of a wall-mounted Tokyo Metro map at a station (possibly Tokyo, judging by the dirty finger marks concentrated there). The lines of the Tokyo Metro are rendered in thick, bold colours that match pretty well with the current designations – yellow/gold for the Ginza Line, red for the Marunouchi Line, and grey/silver for the Hibiya Line. The competing Toei Subway’s Asakusa Line is not rendered in its modern pink/rose colour, but as a thinner navy blue line: it’s simply labelled as “Tokyo Municipal Sub Way” on the legend (see this image that shows more of the map) as it was the only Toei line in operation at the time.

The map itself is pretty chaotic, with lines headed in just about every direction imaginable, but it has a kind of naive charm to it. In a way, the neat ring of the Yamanote Line (passing across the horizontal middle of this image) defines the shape of the map: because it’s rendered as a rounded rectangle, all the subway lines have to take erratic paths to fit!

It is interesting to note that the station names are set in Futura Bold inside a bold ring of the line’s colour – something that has become a major part of the wayfinding system for the subways in Tokyo today. Each line is designated a letter – “G” for Ginza, for example – that is always shown as Futura Bold inside a thick ring of that line’s colour. It’s definitely very interesting to see the start of that evolution here.

Source: University of Utah Digital Collections

Submission – Official Map: TranGo Route Map, Okanogan, Washington

October 6, 2020
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Submitted by Aaron, who says:

Worst map? High quality map I found while researching random rural transportation systems in the middle of nowhere across the country. I have to say, their website design is not much better either.

Transit Maps says:

It’s all so easy to look at this very basic map and say that it’s terrible, but we do need to be mindful that these small regional transit services operate on shoestring budgets with minimal staff and resources. Looking at the metadata of the PDF, I can see that it’s been produced in Microsoft Publisher (not really a first choice for transit map design!) and the name attached to the “Author” field is that of TranGo’s General Manager – it looks like they wear a lot of different hats within the organization if they’re the ones producing the timetable brochure and map!

One thing the map does do really well within its simple framework is differentiate between its routes by using shapes as well as colour – meaning that it’s actually quite accessible for colour-blind users, even if the method employed is a little unconventional.

I’d also argue that the simplicity doesn’t matter that much, as the geography of this part of Washington means that there’s really only one way to get from one town to another: Okanogan to Twisp? State Highway 20. Brewster to Okanogan? U.S. Highway 97. And so on. In a way, this little diagram is simply a quick way of showing which towns are directly connected by bus services and no more, and in that it generally succeeds. There is a more detailed interactive map available on TranGo’s website which shows full routes, bus stops and schedule information, so this map isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of map from the agency.

I will also say that the TranGo logo is quite nice, though perhaps it’s uncomfortably similar to the previous SFMTA logo (which itself was accused of plagiarism at the time it was introduced).

Our final word: No, it’s not great – but it does the job in the context it’s used in (an introductory brochure about transit in the area) and the constraints it was produced under.

Source: TranGo website

Project: Denver Rail Network 2044 Spiral Map

October 4, 2020
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I originally posted this map on Twitter, but I’m also putting it on the blog for posterity, as well as to fully detail the design decisions that went into it.

I’ve long thought that there’s been a design opportunity with Denver rail maps for a large circular arc for the light rail stations running south around the edge of the downtown area out of Union Station. I’ve doodled with ideas over the years, but I’ve never found them particularly satisfying or aesthetically pleasing. There was always a disconnect between the curved sections and the regular orthogonal lines which stopped the map acting as a cohesive whole. Until finally, I thought: what if I did away with straight lines all together?

It was certainly a concept well outside my comfort zone, as I’m very much used to working with straight lines and 45-degree angles. The relationship between elements is fairly easy for me to define when working within these “regular” design rules, but curved lines are another whole world to me! I had to draw an intentionally loose working diagram with a Sharpie before I even started work on the computer to convince myself that this could even be done. The fat tip of the Sharpie prevented me from getting overly concerned with detail, allowing me to concentrate on the general form and flow of the map. One thing it showed me was that such a diagram was still basically topologically correct: all the lines ended up in the pretty much the right place relative to each other. Encouraged, I began!

Even with the sketch, it look me a few different versions before I finally hit upon a workable solution to my problem: spirals! Concentric circles were almost there, but created an ugly “peanut” shape in the middle of the map (which you can see in the working sketch), where I really wanted a smooth curve from Union Station all the way around to Peoria. Some trial-and-error gave me the right spiral decay required to achieve this and still leave room for station labelling, and then I set up a set of nested spirals for all the lines out of Union Station to act as master curves. From there, it was really just a matter of cutting the spirals at the right points and rotating/reflecting them to join back together correctly. In a way, I basically “unrolled” the spirals to go where I needed them to – along with a couple of shorter connecting curves where the lines change direction sharply (see the “G” and “W” lines). Spacing stations evenly along the curves provided a new challenge, but I was able to work out a system that gave pleasing results: there’s a lot more eyeballing and manual adjustment of labels to get things looking optically “right” than there is with standard 45-degree maps!

The downtown loop was probably the most challenging part of the map, and I almost chickened out and made those lines straight. However, I persevered and came up with a solution that allowed me to keep everything curvy while still staying somewhat true to the real-world alignment of things. I’m especially pleased with the way that the “L” line swoops gracefully up to join the “A” line at 38th & Blake: it made this troublesome part worth the effort!

While I’m extremely happy with the finished product, there are still a few things that I can improve – not the least of which is learning to manipulate Bezier curves so that the end result looks more organic and a little less mathematical. It’s a real skill, and I’m not quite there yet. Some have commented that the map is incomplete without the downtown/mall shuttle buses and the Flatiron Flyer bus services to Boulder, and these concerns are completely valid. I’m not sure I’ll ever address them, as I feel I’ve done what I wanted to with this proof-of-concept map, but I hear you!

However, the map has generally been received quite well, which is pretty darn gratifying when you take a left-field design approach. Some comments from Twitter are featured below: let me know what you think in the comments!

Submission – Unofficial Maps: Sydney and Melbourne “Body Swap” Maps by Thomas Soo

September 21, 2020
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Submitted by Thomas, who says:

I felt like Melbourne was so far away because of the Covid-Curtain and desperately wanted to do anything but study for uni this weekend so I made this!

It’s amazing how different the approaches to passenger commute information, up-front legibility and overall design cues differ between the rival cities.

Transit Maps says:

What a fun little project!

What I particularly like is just how far Thomas has taken the “body swap”: the real Melbourne map shows V-Line services out into regional Victoria, so the “Melbourne-ised” Sydney map does the same… whereas the official Sydney map stops at the edges of Greater Sydney, so the “Sydney-fied” Melbourne map follows suit. City Circle becomes City Loop, and vice versa. Line nomenclature gets swapped, and so on. Even service names become more like their adopted homes: V-Line becomes VicLink to mimic NSW’s TrainLink. It’s all rather wonderfully done.

Overall, Thomas has done a great job of recreating each style, although the type for the Melbourne map isn’t quite the right font and should be black instead of dark gray. The big terminus lettering for Cranbourne and Frankston seems unnecessarily cramped, and I really would have liked to see the Stony Point Shuttle line use the exact shade of teal that the Sydney Metro uses – most of the work has already been done by using the same cased line and the superfluous “S” for each station marker… the right colour just would have made everything perfect. The Sydney map is pretty much spot-on, however – even down to the way that lines outside the “zone boundary” get compressed into very tight and unrealistic spaces.

The other main takeaway is just how much this version of Sydney map looks like the pre-2013 CityRail map (September 2012, 3.5 stars), which probably says something about the slightly more generic design language that the current Melbourne map uses: ticks for stations, rounded corner rectangles for interchanges, etc.

Head over to Thomas’ Behance page for more detail on the project.

Source: Thomas Soo/Behance

Historical Map: Proposed Personal Rapid Transit Demonstration Site, Denver, 1972

September 18, 2020
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Long before the current idea of putting Teslas in tunnels and calling it rapid transit, there was PRT, or Personal Rapid Transit. The idea was that many small carriages on guideways could take people directly to their intended destination anywhere along the route – described as a “horizontal elevator” by John Volpe, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation at the time.

In the early 1970s, Denver beat out 29 other cities around the U.S. and was given an $11 million grant to explore this new technology. This map was produced by the Rocky Mountain News to accompany an article about the project in October 1972. This looks like the original camera-ready artwork, complete with white paint touch-ups. The reproduction in the newspaper would have been much cleaner than this. The obvious hand-lettering for some of the road labels strikes me as a bit slap-dash, and I actually wonder whether the lighter parts of the map were meant to reproduce at all or are just there as a guide for the graphic artist to draw the final map on top of. PMT cameras generally just exposed either pure black or white unless a halftone screen was employed, so I could well believe that the lighter parts would just drop out during exposure. Yes, I operated one of these cameras for the first three or four years of my graphic design career…

Spoiler: the Denver PRT never got built, as public opinion rapidly turned against it once everyone realised there’d be elevated PRT guideways all over town (the plan was for over 100 miles of PRT track!) and the whole thing was going to be extraordinarily expensive. The initial 5.5-mile demonstration track shown here was originally estimated at $40 million, or around $248.7 million in today’s money.

More information on this weird chapter in Denver’s transportation history can be found in this article at the Denver Public Library.

Source: Denver Public Library