Unofficial Map: Boston MBTA Commuter Rail Time-Scale Map

January 8, 2013
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We’ve previously featured Stonebrown Design’s time-scale Boston Subway Map (Aug. 2012, 3.5 stars) – now they’ve produced a map for Boston’s extensive commuter rail network along the same lines.

To my mind, this map is even more successful for a couple of reasons: firstly, the time rings are completely concentric, which makes the map easier to read and looks more aesthetically pleasing. It’s interesting to see how fare zones don’t necessarily correspond to the amount of time it takes to get to central Boston.

Secondly, the addition of service frequency to this map (simply put: the thicker the line, the more trains per day) is quite fascinating and is handled very deftly. The legend regarding this is perhaps a little confusing, but all you have to remember is that a station dot that is smaller than the line is wide indicates that not all trains that pass the station stop there. The sheer number of trains that funnel through Back Bay station is quite astounding.

Our rating: Building and improving upon previous work, this is a fantastic piece of work. 4.5 stars.

Source: Stonebrown Design

Photo: Peek-a-Boo!

January 8, 2013
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The Tyne and Wear Metro system map peeks out from between two carriages at the St. James station in this great old photo from 1982.

Source: jp4712/Flickr (link no longer active)

Vintage “Punch” Magazine Tube Map Cartoon, 1910

January 5, 2013
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A lovely little Edwardian piece of whimsy to welcome the weekend.

Source: Annie Mole/Flickr

Historic Map: Mid-1980s Glasgow Underground Map

January 4, 2013
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Still in situ at the West Street station. For me, this could be dated to the mid-1980s just by the illustration style alone: this scratchy detailed-but-slightly-cartoony style was all the rage then, and could be found in just about every clip art book of the period (back when you actually physically cut or “clipped” the art from a page!).

Source: neate photos/Flickr

Boston MBTA Green Line Average Weekday Traffic (2010) by Barrett Lane

January 4, 2013
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Wednesday’s post, Subterranean Veins of Europe, and its discussion of design choices distorting data reminded me of this map/graph sent to me by Barrett Lane last year. At first glance, this is a really neat and cleverly devised concept: the ridership numbers for each station on Boston’s Green Line are presented in the form of a stylised map of the lines, with vertical bars representing those numbers. It looks great, there’s some solid data behind the graphic, and the visual conceit is very appropriate.

However, there’s one major flaw that – for me – stops this graphic from being a total success. Barrett has used three different vertical scales for his graphs, which prevents rapid visual comparison between numbers (which one might say is the whole point of graphical presentation of data).

The same height represents 5,000 riders on the “B” and “C” branches, 4,000 riders on the “D” and “E” branches, and 20,000 on the main trunk line. The graphic would be far more effective if the bars for the trunk line stations towered above those of the branch lines, don’t you think?

Source: Barrett Lane

Photo: Direction in a Blur of Confusion

January 4, 2013
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Great motion blur photo from the Washington, DC Metro.

Source: itsmaddness/Flickr

Unofficial Map: Metro-North Railroad, New York by Robert O’Connell

January 3, 2013
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Transit maps on Wikipedia can be a bit of a mixed bag. Anyone can contribute, so the quality can range from mediocre to awesome. However, Robert McConnell –also known as “the Port of Authority” – consistently produces some fantastic work. We’ve previously featured his Boston MBTA Commuter Rail map (October 2011, 5 stars), and here’s another fantastic piece.

We’ve also featured unofficial maps that show all commuter and regional rail out of New York before (Carter Green, Oct. 2012, 4.5 stars and Jake Berman, Oct. 2012, 4 stars), so it’s nice to see a map that concentrates solely on one “brand” of commuter rail, and does such a good job of it.

The map definitely wears its influences on its sleeve – the beige background, tightly-spaced Helvetica, and the severe angular diagrammatic form of the map itself are all highly reminiscent of Massimo Vignelli’s 1970s New York Subway map – but it’s still excellently executed. The addition of curves instead of sharp angles where the tracks change direction help to soften the angularity and provide a nice flow to the routes.

(Later Note: Of course, it’s even more reminiscent of the New York commuter rail map designed in 1974 by Joan Charysyn.)

Some nice lateral thought has gone into this as well: almost uniquely, Robert has angled Manhattan Island at 45 degrees to the right of vertical, which works very nicely in simplifying the routes to the north and east.

He also neatly shows Harlem and New Haven line game day services to Yankee Stadium, and the (NJ Transit) Meadowlands shuttle, but curiously omits the New Haven Line “Train to the Game” Meadowlands game day service which runs from New Haven to Seacaucus Junction via Penn Station.

Overall, quite beautifully done. 4.5 stars.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Photo: The Tiniest Underground Map

January 3, 2013
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Illustrating a problem with strip maps that only show stations in the direction of travel: the second-last stop on the line has a stupid-looking map.

Source: jbbartram/Instagram

Infographic: Subterranean Veins of Europe

January 2, 2013
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Here’s an interesting “map” of Europe’s subway systems that was originally featured in a weekly cultural supplement to Milan’s Corriere Della Sera newspaper. The map looks fantastic, and allows all sorts of comparisons between the underground rail systems of Europe, from cost of tickets (cleverly shown as a blue ring of differing thicknesses: the thicker the ring, the more expensive a ticket is), users per day, total length of each system and even a simple chronological ordering of each line opening for the larger systems. I especially like the length comparisons to other long things in Europe at the bottom right.

The English translations are somewhat imperfect (I’m presuming it read a lot better in the original Italian), but everything is pretty understandable, as a good infographic should be!

However, there is one major flaw with this graphic: the large circles around each city are labelled as “radius”, which leads me to expect that the circle shows the relative geographic size of each system. However, it actually uses the entire system length as the radius, which is almost entirely pointless and greatly exaggerates the relative size of the systems. For example, London’s “radius” is shown as a massive 402km (250 miles), when the actual maximum geographical radius is closer to 30km (18.5 miles). Paris’ incredibly dense Metro network (almost all contained within the Boulevard Périphérique) suddenly becomes a huge circle that gives little idea of the system’s tight spacing. It’s a strange design decision that distorts the data underlying the graphic badly, in my opinion.

Source: accurat.it/Flickr

London Underground Map Tin in the Doctor Who Christmas Special, “The Snowmen”

December 29, 2012
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It’s not very often I get to combine two of my absolute favourite things in one post: Doctor Who and transit maps! Without giving too much away (spoilers, sweetie!), the tin is presented in-story as being from 1967, and it looks like the BBC props department did a pretty decent job. The map shown on the tin is indeed Paul Garbutt’s 1964 map, which can be differentiated from the very similar 1970 map – even on-screen like this – because of the enlarged “U” and “D” in the “UNDERGROUND” roundel. By 1970, all letters in the logo were the same height.

There is actually a very clever point to the exact dating of the tin to 1967, but again… spoilers!