Tutorial: How To Design a Transit Diagram

August 30, 2011
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One thing I often get asked regarding my transit diagrams is how I go about actually creating them. Originally, I just jumped right in and pushed things around on a page in Illustrator until it looked okay. These days, I’m far more organised, meticulous and precise with my work and I think it shows in the quality of my diagrams. Here’s a few tips and tricks that I live by when working on them:

Plan Before You Start

Take time to consider everything about your diagram. How thick do you want the route lines to be? Are they touching, or is there a slight gap between them? Are you going to use curves or straight edges where a line changes direction? Consider your station markers – will they be ticks, dots or something else? Think about how you would like to differentiate interchange stations or transit centres as well. Consider the typeface you’re going to use for station names – it should be legible and simple. When you’ve considered all these points, you’ve given yourself a set of rules that you will use to construct the diagram. Every design decision you make should be evaluated against these rules: sometimes, you can break them if needed, but it definitely helps to have them in your head as you work.

Look at an actual map of the area you’re converting into a diagram. Draw rough route lines onto it if needed. Look to simplify the routes down to their essential elements: horizontal, vertical and 45-degree angles. Identify the most complex interchanges as they almost always need the most work. Solve them first, and the rest of the diagram often builds itself. Look for interesting compositional shapes or strong vertical or horizontal axes to build your design off. Some diagrams incorporate geographical idiosyncrasies as an identifying part of the diagram, such the DC Metro diagram’s retention of the “jog” along the western Red Line between Tenleytown and Van Ness.

Use the Right Software

Creating a transit diagram is a very precise task, with route lines and curves that need to match up with each other perfectly to look right, an underlying grid that holds the diagram together and professional-looking typography for station names and legend. For this kind of work, you must use a vector graphics editor like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw or Inkscape. When I see diagrams done in Photoshop or MS Paint, I wonder how the creator even started the project, let alone finish it!

Define Your Grid

From experience, I’ve determined that the most useful grid to have is one that equals the distance between the centre lines of two adjoining route lines. This equals the thickness of those lines if they are touching each other, but if you want a bit of a gap between your lines, then this isn’t true. So, if you have 12-point lines that touch, use a 12-point grid. If you have 10-point lines with a 2-point gap between them, then you’d also use a 12-point grid. I often leave the lines at the full thickness of the grid while I work to ensure everything is lining up right, then make them thinner as required at the end.

Carry the grid through to other elements in your design: use a multiple of it to space your stations evenly along a route. If you have a 12-point grid, you might space stations 48 or 60 points apart. If you want to have curves instead of angled lines where a route changes direction, you may want to set them up as a multiple of the grid as well, although this can often be an aesthetic decision. The bigger the radius of the curve, the more elegant your diagram can look.

Let the Software do the Work for You…

Try to do as little manual placing or editing of your routes as possible. Snap paths to the grid to ensure precise placement. Use numerical values for transformation and movement functions as much as possible, especially when you’re moving things at angles other than right angles, as lines may not conform exactly to the grid in these situations. I love using Illustrator’s Smart Grid (Cmd/Ctrl-U) overlays when working on my diagrams, as it shows me when paths snap to points and angles.

…Except When Doing it Manually Works Better

One thing that Illustrator can’t help you with is adding curves to route lines. You might think that the “Round Corners” effect would be perfect for this task, but it simply doesn’t work. It can do 90-degree corners well enough, but its algorithm doesn’t work as well with 45-degree curves: if you have two or more route lines going around a corner together, they don’t line up with each other at all.

What I do is create a set of master curves that I then manually cut and paste into place once I’ve laid out the overall design of the diagram. Draw as many concentric circles as you need – if your diagram has a curve where five routes change direction together, then you’ll need five circles – then cut each circle into four sets of 90-degree curves. Repeat, except this time, cut your circles into eight sets of 45-degree curves. Keep these master curves off to the side and use them as required. Copy the curves you require, place them precisely over the corner you’re working on (having those Smart Guides on works really well here), cut out the straight lines underneath your new curves and delete them, then join the curves with the remaining segments of the route lines. Time consuming, but absolutely the most accurate way to add curves.

Note: this part of the tutorial is no longer true for users of Adobe Illustrator CC and above, as Adobe has integrated the excellent “Live Corners” tool into the program. See this post for more information.

Consider Typography as an Integral Part of the Design

Labelling of stations is one of the most difficult parts of creating a transit diagram. Whatever you do, don’t leave it until the end. Ensure your design has enough space so that type isn’t crammed into an inappropriate space.

Erik Spiekermann once told me – in typically forthright manner – that “a designer who cannot make all the type horizontal is a loser”, and I’m definitely inclined to agree with him. Labels that are set in entirely horizontal type are far easier to read. You can alternate station names above and below a horizontal route line to save space. If you must angle your type, try and do it from one direction only to minimise the amount of head turning that people have to do. Having your type read from the right (tilting the head to the left) is preferred.

Use Layers

I can’t stress this enough. Each route line should be on its own layer. Stations should be on their own layer. Text should be on its own layer. Any geography should be on its own layer. You can thank me later.

Use Global Colours

I don’t understand why Illustrator even lets you make non-global colours. This is such a useful feature to quickly tweak the look of your diagram. Want your Red Line to become a Green Line? Use global colours and simply edit the swatch: that colour changes everywhere in the document.

That’s it! If you have any questions or comments on these tips, let me know about it.

Project: Historical Passenger Rail of Portland, Oregon

August 29, 2011
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Somewhat related to my previous post, here’s a new transit map of Portland for your perusal. This piece was born out of two things – a friendly after-work chat with the immensely talented Ryan Sullivan of Paste In Place, where we discussed a concept similar to this; and a chance discovery of a high-resolution scan of a 1943 streetcar/trolley map on the amazing Vintage Oregon site.

Based on that map, and information gleaned from too many other sources to mention, I have created a map that compares the passenger rail network of Portland from three different eras – 1912, 1943, and 2015, when the Portland–Milwaukie MAX line will be completed.

In this case, “passenger rail” is defined as streetcar (both old and modern), the once-plentiful interurban trains (a precursor to today’s light rail that once ran down the Willamette Valley as far as Eugene and Corvallis), MAX light rail and long-distance passenger trains (Amtrak and its precursors). Due to the somewhat incomplete nature of what my research uncovered, there may be a few little gaps and errors, but I believe what I show is a good representation of the services offered in each era.

Visually, the overlaid routes present a very compelling story. 1912 (white) was the heyday of Portland’s streetcar network and shows a dense, compact and comprehensive service for a city that covered a much smaller area than it does now. By 1943 (cyan), many of those routes had been supplanted by cheaper to run trolleys or buses. The automobile was gaining in popularity, and by 1958, the once ubiquitous streetcar had totally disappeared from Portland’s streets. Finally, the modern revival of Portland’s rail system is illustrated in the magenta overlay of 2015, which shows he new streetcar system, MAX light rail and today’s urban sprawl into once-distant suburbs – look at the vast distances the MAX lines cover compared to the compact streetcar routes of old. And I’m not even showing the whole extent, preferring to concentrate on Portland’s inner core so that downtown can still be made out.

Some other points of interest: two of the 1912 interurban routes through southwest Portland mirror the modern day I-5 and Barbur Boulevard almost exactly – rails have been firmly supplanted by road here. The Springwater Corridor which can plainly be seen swooping through southeast towards Gresham and beyond in 1912 and 1943 is now a popular bike path and part of the 40 Mile Loop, while other old rail corridors have been reused by modern-day MAX alignments. Also of note is the Council Crest route into the Southwest Hills. Now just a small city park with a view, up until 1929 Council Crest boasted an amazing amusement park and an observation tower!

As always, comments are welcome. I’d particularly like to know if anyone can see any obvious errors, as I’m almost certain I’ve missed some smaller parts of the early networks.

Project: Rail Transit of Portland, Oregon

August 16, 2011
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Here’s a new transit diagram that I’ve been working on for a while now – a unified rail transit map for the place I live, Portland, Oregon. Portland is blessed with fantastic public transportation, but I’ve always felt that the official TriMet system diagram fails to fully show this, even after its recent redesign.

The official diagram only shows TriMet’s services – the MAX light rail and WES commuter rail – relegating the important Portland Streetcar to a pathetic, unlabelled, light brown squiggle through downtown. As the Streetcar is currently expanding across the Willamette River in the form of the Streetcar Loop, I feel it is even more important to show its full extent and interaction with TriMet’s services. As both systems honour each other’s fares, there’s absolutely no reason not to show both systems on one diagram.

So that’s what I’ve done. My diagram shows the TriMet/Streetcar system when all currently proposed work has been completed. This includes the Portland–Milwaukie light rail extension, the full Portland Streetcar loop and the extension of the MAX Yellow Line into Vancouver over the new I-5 bridge. Works in very early planning stages, such as the Lake Oswego Streetcar extension, are not shown. I’ve also shown Amtrak routes and the Aerial Tram for the sake of completeness, even though they fall somewhat out of the scope of the main purpose of the diagram.

Although many people are unofficially calling the Portland–Milwaukie light rail project the “Orange Line”, I’ve decided to show it as extension of the Yellow Line. Arbitrarily ending the southbound Yellow Line at Union Station and changing the train to an Orange Line train for the rest of its southbound journey doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If the Blue Line can keep the same colour for its entire length, so can the Yellow Line.

Unusually, I decided to use 30- and 60-degree angles for this diagram, instead of the usual 45 degrees. This more accurately reflects the geography of Portland’s downtown, where the MAX tracks form a distinctive “cross shape” as they all converge on Pioneer Courthouse Square.

One minor problem with the diagram is the huge amount of distortion the further away from the city centre you get: Wilsonville should be way off the bottom of the diagram, and should be shown as being on the banks of the Willamette River, as should the stations near Milwaukie. However, these diagrams are always a trade-off between geographical accuracy and clarity – I think I’ve struck a good balance between the two.

My original design for this looked much different (see the third image in the gallery above), but when I reworked it in a second draft to tighten up some spacing, I decided to work with a black background that is somewhat reminiscent of TriMet’s new signage on the downtown Transit Mall (see the last image above).

As always, comments are more than welcome!

Plus ça Change, Washington D.C. Style

May 26, 2011
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Recently, I entered a friendly contest organised by the Greater Greater Washington website to redesign the Washington, DC Metrorail map. With the recent appointment of the original designer, Lance Wyman, to renew the real map, there’s a lot of interest in this subject at the moment.

I had already done a lot of the hard work with my previous redesign, although a few of the contest’s new requirements definitely necessitated a lot of rethinking. Overall, I thought my design was very successful and I was absolutely thrilled when I learned that my design (Map C) placed first in the People’s Choice award and had earned second place from the jury. To me, it was justification that new and fresh, well-considered design can overcome the status quo and be accepted by a large base of people, despite the obvious attachment to the old map that people have.

I waited with bated breath for the next day, when the judges’ number one choice was to be revealed. There were quite a few designs that I considered to be excellent, and I wondered which of those had taken the prize. To say I was surprised and disappointed when the winning entry was revealed to be an absolute clone of the current map with the Silver Line and new peak services grafted on would be a huge understatement.

I’d like to point out here that I have absolutely nothing bad to say about the designer of the winning entry – he thought that this was a valid approach to take, executed it well, and the jury agreed with him. Design is a very subjective thing: everyone approaches the same problem differently, and all viewers react to that solution differently.

However, I do feel that the winning entry once again shows all the flaws of the current map that I have previously discussed: huge callout boxes about timetabling that unattractively cover half the map, inconsistently angled type, the “ugly Volvo” parking symbols, a “District diamond” that somehow doesn’t form an exact diamond (the left side is much lower than the right), huge transit station circles that no longer work with the additional Silver Line and thick route lines that now obscure the landmarks shown on the map with that added line.

The jurors even point out many of these critical flaws in their notes, yet still awarded their prize to it. In short, the judging panel is saying, “This really doesn’t work, but we still think it’s better than anything else presented”. Familiarity and the status quo wins over innovation, fresh thinking and strong design. Or the combined reaction of a group over the individual?  Maybe as a group we want that familiarity; while as anonymous voters, we can appreciate and advocate new ideas without being influenced by others’ thoughts.

I’m certainly under no illusions about the future of the Metro map. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the map is so ingrained into the psyche of people from the greater DC area that any change will only ever be gradual and incremental. I guess I was just hoping for a more dynamic decision from a contest that has little or no bearing on how the real-life map will evolve.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Project: Interstates as Subway Diagram (Revised Version)

March 23, 2011
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My original Eisenhower Interstate System in the Style of H.C. Beck’s London Underground Diagram is one of my most successful pieces of design, with countless posters sold, and inclusion in the excellent book Mapping America: Exploring the Continent (highly recommended for map geeks!).

However, since I completed it, I have produced quite few more transit-styled diagrams and have learned a lot about the design skills required to produce them. As a result, some elements of the original poster began to grate on my nerves—poor design choices and sloppy technique had produced something that was no longer up to my own personal standards.

So I started again from scratch. Although the two diagrams may look superficially similar, almost every aspect was reevaluated and reworked. Route line colours, line thicknesses and corner radii were tweaked to more closely match the diagram’s inspiration: the London Tube map, and a logo that playfully echoes (without being derivative of!) the famous London Underground roundel was created.

Accuracy is greatly improved on this version, with every endpoint being rechecked: I-55’s southern end is now properly in LaPlace, Louisiana, rather than my previously lazy choice of New Orleans. Similarly, I-93 now threads its way through Boston to rejoin I-95 in Canton, and I-64 extends past St Louis to terminate in Wentzville. I was also able to show the unusual east/west splits in I-35 in Fort Worth/Dallas and Minneapolis/St Paul, and have added more intermediate cities to many of the route lines. Finally, I addressed perhaps the biggest complaint I received on the first version: the omission of Pittsburgh. It now sits nestled between its surrounding interstates (I-70, I-76 and I-79, which form a neat triangle around the city, just as in real life).

As always, comments are welcome!

Project: High Speed Train Routes of France Transit Diagram

February 2, 2011
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Presenting my next transit-styled diagram, this time showing all the high speed train routes that pass through France. This includes the French (SNCF) TGV trains, the Eurostar trains from London, the Thalys services from Belgium and the Netherlands, and some ICE services from Germany that operate in tandem with corresponding TGV services from France. It does not show high speed trains that do not pass through France: for example, the ICE train from Amsterdam to Germany does not pass through France, so is not shown.

Click here to view the map full-screen.

Research for this diagram was particularly tricky as no one source outlines all the routes in one comprehensive listing. I had to compile the information from various sources, none more valuable than the amazing Deutsche Bahn web timetable, which I have fond memories of using in 2003 as I caught trains all over Europe while backpacking.

Once I started the diagram, the sheer amount of high speed services in France initially overwhelmed me, and it was a long while before things formed a coherent pattern for me. Once I worked out the complex routing of trains out of and around Paris, things began to fall into place. I decided that colour-coding would try to reflect the origin of the train, so all trains out of the Gare de l’Est in Paris are variations of green, for example,while all Thalys routes are a shade of the rolling stock’s distinctive maroon. I find it particularly interesting how the initially homogeneous colours become more mixed the further from Paris you get, especially towards Marseille, where lines from all over France begin to converge towards their final destination.

It’s interesting to note that the equivalent diagram in America would consist of one route – the Acela Express from New York to Washington, DC – and even that barely qualifies as “high speed”. Fast by American standards, maybe…

But do note that these trains do not necessarily travel at their maximum speed (up to 300km/ per hour or 185 miles/hour) on all the routes shown. To attain these speeds, the trains have to run on specially-built tracks, which currently are only on the highest density parts of the system. However, all these routes use TGV/Eurostar/Thalys/ICE rolling stock, which is the criterion for inclusion on this diagram.

My favourite parts of the diagram include the grand loop around Paris to the east, the complex interplay of routes around Lille, and the subtle inclusion of the Winter routes to the French Alps without having to accord them an entire route from start to finish: more complexity is not what this diagram needs!

As always, comments are always welcome!

Update: March 3rd, 2011: New version of the diagram with a new route added from Melun to Marseille (Don’t know how I missed that one!). Routes from Le Havre to Strasbourg and Cherbourg to Dijon were deleted, as these “experimental” (and poorly patronised) routes stopped running in December 2010. Winter services to Evian and Saint-Gervais also added. Finally, the station names have been made a little larger.

Project: European E-Road System as a Subway Diagram

October 31, 2010
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Interstate System? Europe laughs at your petty Interstate System, America. In 1975, the United Nations Economic and Social Council’s Economic Commission for Europe ratified a document outlining international traffic arteries through Europe and beyond. Commonly known as E-Roads, these highways criss-cross Europe in much the same way that the Interstate system does the United States, but with even more roads and even longer routes.

However, this system is overlaid on the top of national highways with varying levels of acceptance and success. The UK, while a signatory to the agreement, does not signpost E-Roads at all, while other countries have brought their national numbering totally in line with the E-Road system. As such, knowledge of this system is not universal and it often appears that there is a theoretical concept of a Pan-European highway system as opposed to an actual network of highways.

I actually started this diagram almost as soon as I finished my Interstates as London Underground diagram, and originally worked it up in exactly the same style as that piece (see image 4 above).  However, I soon realised that the European system’s extra complexity was not suited to that particular graphic style and put the project on the back burner while I pursued other diagram-related projects.

In August, I decided to start the project completely from scratch with a new, more precise style — a culmination of all the things I have learned creating all my transit-styled diagrams up to this point. The results were immediately more rewarding: the whole diagram hangs together much better this way and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

To give you some idea of the work that I’ve put into this diagram, here’s a short time-lapse video of its construction in Adobe Illustrator. Each shot is taken roughly 30-45 minutes apart.

As usual, comments and corrections are welcome.

And finally, a couple of notes:

  • Ferry routes shown are as listed in the United Nations agreement document, and do not necessarily correlate to an actual, existing ferry route. Some existed in 1975 and have since shut down, others have never existed at all except in theory.
  • Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, The Hague is the seat of government.
  • E04 through Sweden is coloured as if it is a continuation of E55. This is intentional, as E04 is E55 in all but name. By the time the route of E55 was decided upon, Sweden had already signposted the entire length of the designated road within Sweden as E04 from an earlier system. To save the expense of new signs, Sweden was allowed to keep the E04 designation.

Project: Amtrak Subway Map

July 11, 2010
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Presenting the latest in my series of transit-styled diagrams (see also the Interstate System in the style of the London Underground and a Washington, DC Metro map redesign), the entire Amtrak passenger rail system in the style of a subway map.

Surprisingly, I haven’t seen another take on this anywhere else on the internet, but I guess it is a fairly monumental undertaking (Good thing I’m the patient type!). Every last station is shown, the result of a lot of research on both Amtrak’s official site and Wikipedia.

UPDATE – November 26, 2012: I’ve updated this map with the latest route and station information. Only minor changes: extended the Downeaster to Brunswick, Maine, added a second Santa Clara station (University) to the Capital Corridor route, a couple of stations dropped off the Keystone service, fixed a few timetabling errors and typos.

UPDATE – December 11, 2012: Another update to include the new Northeast Regional service to Norfolk, Virginia.

UPDATE – October 9, 2013: Update to the Pacific Surfliner route: deleted the Orange and Laguna Niguel stations; added Carlsbad Village, Carlsbad Poinsettia, Encinitas and Sorrento Valley stations. Removed Richmond from the Coast Starlight. Added Ardmore back to the Pennsylvanian route – Amtrak’s site lists it as serving that line (it seems that it stops there only on Sundays).

UPDATE – January 7, 2015: Updated the Vermonter route: added the new Greenfield and Northampton stations; and removed Amherst station.

Project: Washington DC Metro Diagram Redesign

February 17, 2010
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If there’s one thing I love, it’s a good Metro/Subway/Underground map. Some of them are design classics and really shouldn’t be messed with (London especially). Others have flaws, but are mostly tolerable (Boston not naming all stations on the Green Line really annoys me, but the rest of the diagram is quite well done).

And then there are the diagrams that I simply can’t abide.

And, at the moment, foremost amongst those is that of the Washington, DC Metro system. I know that it’s one of the most comprehensive mass-transit systems in the US. And I know that some love its broad, brightly-coloured route lines and overly-large station dots, both of which do lend sort of a child-like simplicity to the system, but I’m not one of them. My main problem is that it looks like it’s been done by an amateur – white keylines around the route lines are of different thicknesses in different parts of the map and station dots simply aren’t centred on their lines. Also baffling is the choice of an extremely ugly symbol to indicate parking at stations. There’s an international symbol for parking, and a blue circle with a white “P” inside it looks a lot more elegant than something akin to a boxy mid-1980s Volvo.

Delving further, it became obvious to me that there are also some serious inaccuracies on the current DC Metro diagram: whether these are because of space restrictions or error, I don’t know. Friendship Heights on the Red Line should straddle the border of the District, not sit well outside it, as should Southern Avenue on the Green Line. The next station out on the Green Line, Naylor Road, also sits very close to the border in reality – something not indicated at all on the current map, which just heads on out in a straight line. And why are the District/County border lines exactly the same shade of grey as the Capital Beltway road?

Another huge problem for legibility is the number of different angles that type is set at. We have station names set horizontally, at 45° degrees reading up from the left AND at 45° down from the left. And where type can’t quite fit at those angles (I’m looking at you, Foggy Bottom-GWU and Farragut West), the designer cheats and changes the angle.

I’m also not a fan of the huge call-out boxes that explain the peak hour restrictions on the Yellow and Red Lines. The one on the Yellow Line makes you work really hard to find Mt Vernon Square/7th St-Convention Center station before you can even visualise the gap in services on the map.

Most staggering of all, on the current map, the borders of the District/Arlington County don’t describe the perfect diamond shape that they should – they’ve been distorted to fit lines and stations in. On a diagram that is reduced to perfect 45° angles elsewhere, this is unforgivable.

Finally, there are big changes afoot with the Metro system. Work is already underway on the Silver Line, which will run parallel with the Orange Line from Stadium-Armory to East Falls Church before splitting and heading past Dulles Airport deep into Loudon County. If the current style of map adds another route at the thickness that lines are currently shown at, very little of the underlying “map” will still be visible. I also doubt that the current “double dot” indicator for a Transit Center will be visually viable when three lines cross one at Metro Center, or three cross two at L’Enfant Plaza.

So, this is my solution.

Fitting on the same US Letter sheet (albeit rotated 90°) as the current PDF available on the Washington Metro website, with the distinctive diamond around the District/Arlington County at exactly the same size, as well as type. All information that is shown on the current map is present on my version (plus a little more, as you’ll see below).

My first amendment was a thinning of route lines to allow the addition of the Silver Line without obscuring more of the “map” underneath the routes. Where possible, lines exit the District at the correct relative position along the border, and stations that straddle or are located very close the the border maintain that position. An added benefit of the thinner route lines is that I was actually able to show the commuter/heavy rail lines and stations in a manner that is informational, but subordinate to the main Metro lines.

Note that the Red Line runs underneath the Silver/Orange/Blue line heading south after Farragut North – this is done to denote the lines have no interaction or interchange at this point: something the current map doesn’t do a very good job of.

Line colors are now denoted by a simple single letter at the end of each line, rather than the clumsy and obtrusive “GREEN LINE”, “BLUE LINE”, etc laid alongside each line on the current map. It is absolutely necessary to denote lines in another manner than just colour alone – red/green color-blind people perceive very line apart from Blue and Yellow as very similar shades of muddy brown. Also, the peak hour restrictions on the Red and Yellow Lines are now clearly indicated by darker lines running down the middle of the route line between relevant stations, and are fully explained in the Legend on the right hand side of the diagram.

All station names are now set horizontally. Every single one of them! And very few of them overlap lines or other important elements, even with the station name overload that seems to affect so many US transit systems. I mean, “U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo” – really?!

The Capital Beltway and borders are now different shades of grey and much different thicknesses, and the District itself has a subtle coloured background to set it apart from the surrounding counties. Colours for the rivers and parkland are more muted than on the current map, which allows the routes themselves to stand out more.

Is my approach perfect? No. My map probably exchanges some of the individual charm of the original in search of clarity and accuracy, but it definitely shows a different approach to the problem… which, to me, is a fascinating thing.