Ha! Love the way the cracks under the remnants of the map seem to form their own roads and streets. Great title for this photo, too.
Source: JSDesign/Flickr
Photo – Bus Maps Can Be So Hard To Read…
Historical Map: Transportation Map of Greater Winnipeg, 1941
Here’s another beautiful vintage transit map, this time from Winnipeg, Canada. It’s around the same age as this great map from Portland, Oregon, and displays a similarly austere wartime aesthetic. The map is printed in just three colours (black, red and green) and – apart from some of the typography in the legend – is entirely hand-drawn and lettered.
Important buildings and points of interest are all carefully and charmingly rendered, but the real winners for me are the numerous golf courses dotted around the city. On the fairways and greens are miniature golf players, most of whom seem to be having a very bad day on the course indeed.
Some other elements are slightly less successful, such as the poorly-drawn scroll around the downtown Winnipeg inset, but overall, this is a charming and whimsical map.
One final point of interest is the obvious replacement of the original streetcar network (solid green routes) by buses (red routes). By 1955 – just 14 years after this map was produced – the streetcar tracks were ripped up, and trolleybuses were phased out in 1970.
Our rating: A charming little slice of history. Red and green aren’t the best colours to use for differentiating service modes, but I doubt a lot of thought was put into that back in 1941. Ticked-off cartoon golfers elevate this to a four star rating.
Source: Manitoba Historical Maps/Flickr
Photo: Painted TTC Map
Photo: LA Metro Red and Purple Lines Strip Map
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the Los Angeles Metro system has one of the most coherent, unified transit agency corporate identities out there. It’s used intelligently and consistently across the entire system – from maps, station signage and onto their website and collateral. Distinctive without being extrovert, it displays information simply and effectively, and looks good while doing it.
Source: tracktwentynine/Flickr
Historical Map: Perth and Suburban Districts Showing Tramway Routes
The extent of the tramway system in Perth, Australia in the 30s and 40s before it was all ripped up in 1958. Ironically, the State Government wants to build a new tram network over 50 years later.
Transit Maps says: Sweet old school tram map, with routes simply and clearly overprinted in bold red on top of a street map. Perth certainly isn’t alone in rebuilding what once existed: this type of urban renewal through transit is happening all over the place, especially here in the US.
However, is “MAX” really the best name Perth could come up with? Portland, Oregon and Las Vegas already use the same acronym (Metropolitan Area Express), there’s also a Modesto Area Express in California, while Salt Lake City also has its own MAX (which doesn’t seem to stand for anything). Not forgetting Auckland’s MAXX with an extra “X” as well. A little originality, please!
Official Map: Merseyrail Network, Liverpool, England, 2012
Submitted by ma77design, who says:
I think it’s one of the most unattractive and horribly designed transit maps out there. It hasn’t been redesigned or reworked for a large number of years. Its choice in colours is uninspiring and doesn’t really offer much to people using it.
Transit Maps says:
While certainly not the worst transit map out there by any stretch of the imagination, this map is so bland and generic that it looks like it escaped from the cookie-cutter factory. There’s no major technical defects or horrible mistakes, but it’s just so… meh.
Aesthetically, things could be easily improved by rounding the corners where routes change direction and adopting a more contemporary colour palette (that yellow fare zone is pretty hard on the eyes). The part that needs the most work is definitely the table of station details underneath the actual map, which is pretty terrible. The table alone takes this down from a completely average (meh) score of 2.5 stars to a lowly two.
Source: Official Merseyrail website
Fantasy Map: DC Subway Map from “Leverage”
Just good enough to pass for the real thing when fleetingly seen in the background of a TV show.
The map uses real DC Metro station names, but they’re all in the wrong places. The “corporate identity” uses the colours from the old TriMet livery… which is kind of neat, seeing as the show is filmed in Portland, TriMet’s base of operations.
In the show, I believe that the Washington Park MAX station (the only underground station in the system) stands in for DC Metro stations.
Source: TriMet/Flickr
Official Map: Suggested Bus Network of Wellington, New Zealand
When Brent Palmer submitted his own frequent service map of Wellington, he also sent along a link to a PDF of a diagram that the Greater Wellington Regional Council is using as a discussion piece to promote changes to the bus network.
I think Brent describes it best:
There are plans for a more comprehensive public transport network in Wellington. What a shame that the schematic depicting it is a monstrosity that looks like it was done by the work-experience kid. You’re gonna need eye-bleach.
Transit Maps says:
Wow. This thing is simply terrible. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it had been thrown together in Word or PowerPoint with the limited drawing tools available in those applications. But no-one would ever do that… would they?
Metadata in the PDF reveals a document title of “Wellington Network Diagram for Advertorial”, so appallingly, it would seem that this is a map meant for public consumption, and is not just an internal planning document.
Right now, I finally think that the Buffalo light rail map has some serious competition as the worst map to ever grace this blog. Half a star.
Source: link to PDF file – download at your own risk!
Unofficial Map: Frequent Transport of Wellington, New Zealand by Brent Palmer
Submitted and created by Brent Palmer.
This is one I conjured up this weekend, dealing with Wellington, NZ. Only four local bus routes (and the Airport Flyer) turned out to meet any half-reasonable “frequent service” criteria.
Transit Maps says:
A gorgeous looking map from long-time follower, Brent Palmer, that unfortunately serves to highlight the paucity of frequent transit services in New Zealand’s capital. Another striking dark background, and some unusual but highly effective colours for the routes themselves. Brent makes good use of the extra space afforded by the lack of routes, with nice big numbers for the routes, clear type, and a very handy inset diagram of commuter rail services. Top notch work indeed. Four-and-a-half stars!
Unofficial Map: Caltrain Route map by jeflu
Created by “jeflu”, who says:
A better Caltrain map: Caltrain’s current route map looks outdated and provides very minimal transfer information. I’ve created a refreshed map which provides more comprehensive transfer info (to other transit systems and airports) as well as a one-way fare chart. Stations served by Baby Bullet express trains are in bold. A current drawback: I left out all weekend-only and south-of-San-Jose stops. Future renditions could include those.
Transit Maps says:
This is nice! Much, much better than the stale old official map.
The bold names for the adorably-named “Baby Bullet” service is simple but effective, and doesn’t clutter the map up with an extra route line for this express service.
Perhaps the BART services out of Millbrae station could point north rather than south to better reflect the direction trains actually travel in, but that’s a very minor quibble.
Lovely colour palette, too. Four stars!