Now that’s some nice icing!
Source: smitten/Flickr
Photo: New York Subway Map Cake
Historical Map: Birds-Eye View of Chicago, 1908
Courtesy of the always amazing Big Map Blog (you really should follow them on Twitter), here’s an incredible birds-eye view of Chicago and its elevated railways from 1908. More than anything, I love the minute attention to detail on this – smoke curls from factory chimneys, almost every tree in the city’s parks seems to be present. Of particular note is the spur line out to Union Stock Yards, the self-proclaimed “butchery capital of the world”. So many worked at the yards that this line was an absolute necessity to move them in and out.
Our rating: Incredible attention to detail combined with a breathtaking viewpoint make this compelling. 5 stars!
Digitally-restored prints of this map are available in my online print store.
Source: Big Map Blog
Photo: Old Paris Metro Map (Detail), c. 1969-1977
This is simply gorgeous. The fact that the RER terminates at Nation dates this map from between 1969 (when the RATP first purchased the line from the SNCF) and 1977 (when the line was extended through Paris and became the RER “A” line we know today). The original post on Flickr does not note where this map is (or was) located.
Source: lionelofparis/Flickr
Photo: Bus Maps, Seoul, South Korea
Historical Map: Paris Métro, 1913
Yes, another post about the Paris Métro. I’d stop doing it if I stopped finding really interesting maps! This one is from way back in 1913, and is purportedly the first Métro map to use different colours for each of the lines and the first one to have strip plans for each of them as well.
Another thing to note is that this is a mere thirteen years after the Métro opened – and there’s already eight Métro lines, plus the competing Nord-Sud line (which would later become lines 12 and 13). Try doing that with all the alternatives analyses and environmental documentation that would be required today!
Finally, the map features one more remarkable thing: Paris is still entirely encircled by an enormous defensive wall, the Thiers Wall, the last in a series of fortifications around the city. The wall was constructed from 1841-1844 as the “ultimate defense” and demolished between 1919 and 1929 because of utter obsolescence. The location of this wall corresponds exactly to the Boulevard Périphérique of today, and the names of some Métro stations still note the location of gates through the wall – Porte Dauphine, Porte de Champerret, Porte de Bagnolet, Porte des Lilas, Porte de Clignancourt, etc.
Have we been there? Yes, just not in 1913.
What we like: Just an amazing slice of early Métro history. The co-existence of almost obsolete C19th fortifications and cutting-edge early C20th technology is a little mind-blowing, to be honest.
What we don’t like: The map itself is hard work to read, although this is mitigated somewhat by the inclusion of the strip maps for each line.
Our rating: Awesome. 5 stars!
Source: sandmarg.etsy/Flickr
Montreal Metro Board Game
Sent my way by Twitter user @andrewsalzberg, here’s another board game based on a transit system – this time, Montreal’s Metro! (Readers may remember this post about “The London Game”, a board game based on the London Underground.)
Looks like a pretty simple “race” game, but it captures the aesthetics of the actual map quite nicely.
Source: Openalex website – link no longer active
Official Map: Sydney CityRail Network Map, 2012
Here’s a map that has been requested quite a few times, but I’ve held off on until now. Having lived in Sydney most of my life, I think it’s difficult to be dispassionate about something I’m so familiar with… but here goes!
Have we been there? You know it!
What we like: Clear and easy to understand. Different types of services are denoted well, but in a nicely understated way: grey lines with coloured ticks that relate to the suburban lines they share track with for intercity routes works very well. Thinner, subordinate lines for country bus routes also share their colour with their related train route, carrying a nice “colour equals compass direction” theme through the whole map.
Comprehensive legend and a well-considered set of explanatory icons. The grid and corresponding list of stations is a nice usability touch for those less familiar with the system.
What we don’t like: Some terribly cramped station names, especially on the Illawarra Line between Arncliffe and Jannali. In fact, the unevenness of station name spacing throughout the whole map is one of its biggest flaws.
Part of this comes from having to show all CityRail services, all the way out to far-distant destinations. Goulburn (at the bottom left) is almost 200km (125 miles) from the centre of Sydney! Older CityRail maps concentrated solely on the suburban area of Sydney, with arrows and text indicating service to distant points, which gave the map more room to breathe. I’m not saying that a map like this one isn’t important, but it could be supplemented by a second map that deals with just the city.
The other main failing of the map is its attempt to place a diagrammatic representation of the network onto a “geographical” background. I’ll tell you now – Sydney’s coastline looks nothing like this. Everything is horribly distorted and the difference in style between angled diagram and “naturalistic” coast is jarring to my eye.
Our rating: Despite a couple of major problems, this map still manages to take a large, sprawling commuter and interurban rail system (plus buses and light rail!) and make it clearly understood. Clean design and nice colour choices help a lot (the Bankstown Line looks much better in orange than its old brown). Three-and-a-half stars.
Source: CityRail website
Unofficial Map: San Francisco BART Reductio ad Absurdum
I was reminded today of this work — one of my favourite transit map design exercises of all time from the always interesting Burrito Justice website. A ridiculously minimalist “hyperlinear” version of the BART map, it actually holds up surprisingly well as a navigational tool. Of course, something like this only works for a relatively simple system like BART.
Source: comments thread of this post on the Burrito Justice site
Historical Map: Detail of New York Subway Map, Post 9/11
Released by the MTA just eight days after 9/11, this map shows how radically lower Manhattan service was affected.
Source: 2nd Ave Sagas website
Unofficial Map: London Tube Map as Electrical Circuit Board by Yuri Suzuki
Created for an exhibition at the London Design Museum, I believe this is also a functional radio as well as a kick-ass representation of the London Underground. The intricate level of detail just has to be seen to be believed. Can I have one?
I’ve seen a few comments around the Internet that this piece brings the Tube Map full circle as Harry Beck was an electrical draughtsman who based his design off circuit diagrams. To the best of my knowledge, there is no conclusive evidence that Beck did this at all.
While he would have been familiar with circuit diagrams in his role as an engineering draughtsman (see the subtle difference in job titles?), he only ever said that his Diagram evolved out of a desire to simplify the system. It’s far more likely that he was actually influenced by the seminal work of George Dow for the LNER. However, this popular conception remains, probably due in no small part to this “joke” circuit diagram that Beck produced in 1933 after colleagues pointed out the similarities.
Source: DesignBoom