Official Map: Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region Tarifzonenplan, Austria, 2013

February 5, 2013
comment 1
Filed Under:
Official Maps
Tags:

Okay, my head is officially reeling here. Try as I might, I can barely make any sense at all of this fare zone map from Austria’s Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region, the transport association that handles rail and bus transit in Eastern Austria (in effect, the Greater Vienna area).

I get that there are eight concentric zone rings radiating out from Vienna, each of which is broken up into smaller zone areas, but after that…

There just seems to be so many exceptions to the zones as to make the system impossible to understand. There are multiple extensions from one zone from another along rail lines, and also the ever-so-helpfully named “Zone Conflicts”, where multiple zones could apply depending on where you’re coming from and where you’re going to (shown by hatching in the colours of all the competing zones).

Add to the that the rather frenetic indication of bus routes (like a big scribble all over the map) and the incredible amount of labelling just about everywhere, and it’s all a bit of a confusing mess to me, unfortunately.

Unless readers from Austria can tell me that they use this map regularly and actually find it useful in their trip planning, I’m going to have to give this one star. Getting around by transit shouldn’t be this obtuse.

Source: Offical VOR website

The Design Process Behind the New Moscow Metro Map

February 4, 2013
comments 2
Filed Under:
Official Maps
Tags:

 As you may have heard by now, the Art Lebedev Studio entry will become the new official Moscow Metro map at the end of February. It beat out the other two entries convincingly, garnering 52% of the popular vote.

Of particular interest to me, though, is the design process page for the map on their website: a fascinating look at the hard work and effort that goes into making a world-class transit map. Concepts are tried, refined, discarded and tried again to find the perfect solution. Nothing is taken for granted and everything is evaluated again and again. Note the beautiful underlying grid (shown above) and the guides used for accurately placing station labels perfectly every time (something that the Washington DC Metro map was completely incapable of in its redesign last year.) More than anything, this page shows that good design doesn’t just “happen”: it’s a process that evolves over time according to the needs of the client and the designer’s skills.

The best part of the page? The map halfway down the page where you can scrub through 95 – yes, ninety-five! – different iterations of the map to see how the map evolved over time.

See also this page on Lebedev’s website that details all the features of the final, finished map. Also fascinating!

Unofficial Map: San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, 2011

February 2, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps
Tags:

This post comes about because of an email from an anonymous follower, who says:

“Any idea if a unified San Francisco transit map exists somewhere out there, perhaps a la the Portland one? SF has to have one of the more confusing transit systems in the country, what with Caltrain + BART + Muni + cable cars + the F line.”

As it happens, there are plenty of unofficial maps showing both just the City of San Francisco and the greater Bay Area.

This one, from calurbanist.com, is definitely one of the best. It shows BART, Muni Metro, the F line, Caltrain, and more. The only rail transit it doesn’t show are the historic cable cars (which surely don’t qualify as rapid transit, anyway) and interstate Amtrak trains, preferring to focus on the Amtrak California Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin services.

Extra handy features include an indication of stations with timed transfers between services and an awesome little diagram of how BART services change quite radically depending on the day of the week.

Technically, the map is extremely well drawn – there’s a lovely clean minimalism to the linework and the colour palette is gorgeous, especially in the background areas.

My one minor complaint is that the colours used to denote Muni Metro and Caltrain are very similar to each other. While the relative thicknesses of their service lines help distinguish them from each other, the services do touch and overlap in a couple of places. This problem seems like it could have been easily solved with a little more thought, but still barely detracts from the sheer quality of this piece.

Our rating: One of my favourite unofficial maps. Four-and-a-half stars.

Source: Calurbanist (newer version of this map)

Fantasy Map: Children’s Library Literary “Transit Map”

February 1, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Fantasy Maps
Tags:

This adorable map adorns the walls of the rather lovely Passmore Edwards Centre children’s library in Newton Abbot, England. The names of the “stations” were chosen by local children in a competition.

Source: Devon Libraries/Flickr

Historical Map: Los Angeles Pacific Electric Network, 1925

February 1, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps, Prints Available
Tags:

A beautifully rendered (just look at those lovingly drawn mountain ranges!) old-school map of the famous “Red Car” network at its absolute zenith.

It was pretty much all downhill after this: real estate sales from land that had been opened up by the network (the real money that allowed the rail service to continue to run despite operating losses) began to decline and many rural services were converted to cheaper buses around this date.

In the 1930s, plans for an extensive “Motorway System” around Los Angeles were drawn up. Originally, rail tracks were planned for the median of these new freeways, but were quietly dropped without much protest. The convenient age of the automobile had arrived, and – despite a short renaissance during World War II – the Pacific Electric faded slowly away and ceased passenger operations in the early 1960s.

Compare to this awesome relief map of the same network from 1920 (October 2011, 4.5 stars).

Prints of an almost identical map from 1933 are available at the Transit Maps print store.

Our rating: Lovely early 20th Century cartography. 4 stars.

Video: Making of a London Underground String Map by Dan Coffey

January 31, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps
Tags:

Feeling creative? Why not make a string art replica of your favourite subway system as shown in this awesome video? The pro tip is definitely the taping down of the actual map before putting in the nails for guaranteed fidelity to the real thing.

Source: Dan Coffey/Vimeo

Unofficial Map: Circular Tube Map by Maxwell Roberts

January 30, 2013
comment 1
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps
Tags:

Apparently, circular Tube Maps are like London buses – none come forever, then two arrive at the same time.

This one is by Maxwell Roberts, an expert on the London Underground map if there ever was one. He’s personally redrawn multiple, multiple versions of the map in just about every possible configuration, just to see what works and what doesn’t. Many are featured in his excellent book, Underground Maps Unravelled, which I promise I’ll review properly one day.

Wisely, Roberts has confined his map to the traditional view of Greater London itself, with trains headed to distant places given an arrow pointer towards that destination.

Interestingly, most of his route lines radiate out from a central point, but some run parallel to other routes instead. This makes the design less rigid to a design ideal, but also upsets the visual flow of the diagram in a couple of places – I find the parallel Bakerloo and Metropolitan Lines in the northwest part of the map quite jarring.

Roberts’ interchange stations are much tighter than Fisher’s, looking far more like “traditional” Tube Map markers, but some are still very convoluted in making their connections between lines, such as at Farringdon/Barbican.

The London Underground logo “hidden” in the Circle Line is a bit of a gimmicky design affectation, although it actually works surprisingly well in the context of the diagram.

Overall, I think this version is more successful than Jonny Fisher’s, although I still don’t really see it as a viable alternative to the current official map. Neither does Mr. Roberts, who says, “Overall though, I don’t think I will be sending this one to TfL for comments. No great advances in usability here, but it was fun to make it.” Three-and-a-half stars.

Source: Going Underground blog – click through for more detailed analysis from Maxwell Roberts himself

Photo: Using the Floor Map as a Guide

January 30, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Miscellany, Official Maps
Tags:

We’ve feautured a transit map on the ceiling of a train before, so why not one on the floor as well?

This map shows the suburban and regional train network surrounding Milan in Italy: Milan’s Metro system can be seen in between our two touristy friends. Reading the departures board in the background, I’d hazard a guess that this map is at the Garibaldi FS station. Awkward to use when the station is really busy, though…

Source: hannahsmith66/Flickr

Historical Map: Lines of the Denver City Tramway, 1913

January 29, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps
Tags:

While we applaud the Denver Regional Transportation District’s current FasTracks program, which is rapidly building a comprehensive light rail and commuter rail system in the Mile High City, it’s sobering to look at a map like this and realise that 100 years ago, Denver already had a comprehensive transit system. It’s a story repeated across America – Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, Minneapolis/St. Paul and more.

Source: University of Texas Libraries Map Collection

Photo: Mexico City Metro Linea 1 Strip Map

January 29, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps
Tags:

If you’re going to use icons for each of your stations, as Mexico City does, then why not make them nice and big and simply arrange them in the correct order?

More from Wikipedia on the iconography of the Mexico City Metro:

Each station is identified by a minimalist logo related to the name of the station or the area around it. This is because, at the time of the first line’s opening, the illiteracy rate was extremely high, so people found it easier to guide themselves with a system based on colors and visual signs. The design of the icons and the typography are a creation of Lance Wyman, who also designed the logotype for the 1968 Summer Olympic Games at Mexico City. The logos are not assigned at random; rather, they are designated by considering the surrounding area, such as:

  • The reference places that are located around the stations (e.g., the logo for Salto del Agua fountain depicts a fountain);
  • The topology of an area (e.g., Coyoacán—in Nahuatl “place of coyotes”—depicts a coyote); and
  • The history of the place (e.g., Juárez, named after President Benito Juárez, depicts his silhouette).

The logos’ background colors reflect those of the line the station serves. Stations serving two or more lines show the respective colors of each line in diagonal stripes, as in Salto del Agua.

Source: Universe’s universe/Flickr