Submission – Fantasy Map: New York Regional Rail Concept by James G

August 5, 2024
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Submitted by James, who says:

I created this map based on various concepts (mainly the work of Alon Levy) for through-running regional rail in the New York region. This network would integrate all of the current commuter rail networks, increasing frequencies to metro-like levels, so I thought a metro-like diagrammatic map would be a good fit. The services are grouped by their routes through the core to organize the many branches into six line identities. I’ve also shown very rudimentary connections to PATH, HBLR, Newark Light Rail, and the MTA Subway and future IBX as simple dots colored by the subway trunk color to save on space and information density. Interested to hear your take on my little design project, and excited to share it with the wider transit map community.

Transit Maps says:

Oh my, this is just full of buttery goodness! Polished, clean, balanced, visually strong, an excellent legend… this one has it all. And I love the idea of combining all of New York’s myriad and varied commuter rail agencies into one cohesive, through-running service.

Despite being what looks like a hexadecalinear diagram – or a staggering sixteen possible directions for route lines to go – James has exercised considerable restraint and given more emphasis to certain angles to give the diagram an excellent compositional framework – Long Island, in particular, looks very striking. Remember, just because you have a lot of choices doesn’t mean you have to use them all!

If there’s perhaps one overarching flaw with this diagram, it’s that it is perhaps just a little too subtle in places. Borough and county labels are too small to be used for quick geographical orientation, similarly the route numbers placed along the lines are really too small to be used for wayfinding, and the thin dark stroke that James puts on each route line to indicate the “core” section is almost invisible. Subtle, classy design is great – I love James’ masterful deployment of drop shadows and outer glows throughout the diagram – but information hierarchy and usability sometimes requires certain elements to draw more attention to themselves.

Our final word: Looks gorgeous, and presents a compelling vision of a better commuter rail future in New York. Has some information hierarchy and element size issues.

Submission – Official Map: GoBus Ohio, 2024

August 2, 2024
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Submitted by Leo, who says:

The state-supported GoBus system in Ohio has a somewhat strange route scheme (e.g. no direct route from Columbus to Cleveland, or Columbus to Cincinnati via Dayton) but their map, despite being overall fairly poor, makes some interesting stylistic choices. The treatment of destinations served by some trips by showing each trip as an individual line, as well as of major cities/hubs where multiple stops are often made, is certainly interesting. Curious to hear your thoughts!

Transit Maps says:

While this simple little map isn’t going to win any awards, Leo is right when he says it has some interest. Encoding the number of trips each route makes on a daily basis into the map itself is pretty clever, and allows you to quickly see that Route A makes three (round-trip) journeys a day from Columbus to Athens, but only one of them continues on to also serve Parkersburg, for example. It can also be seen that the two trips between Parkersburg and Cleveland have distinctly different stopping patterns.

The rings around the terminal stops do seem to serve a purpose by indicating stops in the periphery of the main centres, but perhaps it’s a little confusing at Wooster, where it makes it look like the route loops around the city and returns back to Columbus by a different route (in reality, there’s two different round-trip routes that serve different towns on the way).

Our final word: Simple and somewhat generic in style, but has an interesting concept that encodes frequency and route variations directly into the map. Interesting!

Source: GoBus Ohio website

Submission – Official Map: Greater Copenhagen Rail Map, 2024

July 31, 2024
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Submitted by Jakob, who says:

The M4 branch extension to Copenhagen South has just opened, and with it, a much improved map compared to 2019 [My review of the 2019 map can be found here – Cam]. The Circle Line is now more spacious, junctions are labeled more clearly, and metro lines have a strikethrough to better distinguish them from similarly coloured S-train lines (although the colours across the system should be aligned). Now, Copenhagen can look forward to its first light rail line in the Ring 3 corridor next year, a northern harbour extension of the M4, as well as a new circle line (M5) in the 2030s.

Transit Maps says:

A definite improvement over the previous iteration, simply because they’ve taken the time to redraw everything instead of just trying to shoehorn the circular M3 line into a pre-existing diagram. Everything feels a lot more considered and balanced this time around, as seen by the fact that no labels sit on top of route lines any more. Too many labels are angled for my liking: there seems to be plenty of room to straighten a lot of them out.

Swapping the background colours so the land is white and the water grey also helps a lot, increasing the contrast between the foreground and background elements nicely. Changing the water colour to a light blue instead of grey could perhaps enliven the diagram a bit, as the large flat area of grey seems a bit sterile. That said, the colour palette for the lines is rather gorgeous and I think they’ve hit the right balance this time around. The thin inner stroke on the Metro lines does give some level of mode differentiation without having to change any line colours, so I guess it does its job in the end.

The way the dark grey main line train route line disappears underneath the light blue “A” line on its way to Copenhagen Central seems like cheating, but again, does the job of getting where it needs to be without disrupting the unified rainbow curve of the more important S-Tog lines above it. Functional, if not entirely aesthetically pleasing.

Our final word: Shows the importance of taking the time to re-evaluate previous design decisions and perhaps even completely redoing things to come up with a much-improved final product.

Source: DOT website

Historical Map: Diagram of Passenger Stations in the Sydney Metropolitan Area, 1928

July 29, 2024
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There’s a lot to like about this simple little track diagram of Sydney’s rail system from 1928. There’s a lot of different angles – both with route lines and station labels – but it still manages to hang together as a coherent whole. A big part of that is the dead straight Western line running all the way across the canvas from Central to Penrith, which provides that vital design axis that good diagrams almost always have. The way it breaks this line up in to the Main line, Suburban Line and Local Line by track pairs is wonderful, and does more to explain why trains terminate at Homebush even today than any other Sydney map I’ve ever seen.

Note the inclusion of the Rogan’s Hill line from Westmead, a short-lived line that only operated from 1919 to 1932. As the map pre-dates the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the North Shore line ends at the old Milsons Point railway station, where riders would transfer to a ferry to Circular Quay. Waverton station bears its original name of “Bay Road”, and the line across the harbour via North Sydney and Kirribilli is shown as under construction, as is much of the City Circle, as well as the East Hills line, which had commenced construction in 1927. Most intriguingly, a connecting branch between St. Leonards and Epping is shown as under construction, decades before the line from Chatswood to Epping (now upgraded to metro standards) became a reality. Apparently, this line was part of John Bradfield’s plan for the railways and is the reason why Epping’s centre track once terminated at the station with platforms on both sides.

Our final word: Really rather nicely done! Neat, compact and drawn to a high standard of draughtsmanship. Also a nice little historical record.

Historical Map: Union Pacific Annual Report Map, 1980

July 26, 2024
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Here’s an absolutely cracking diagrammatic map that appeared as a fold-out sheet in Union Pacific annual reports from about 1978 through 1981, maybe slightly longer. I first saw this as a photograph of a partial part of the map, but it didn’t take me too long to find the whole thing on the internet via the Union Pacific Historical Society’s website.

The map features a rigid and consistent use of a 30-degree angle, some neat abstract icons, nice differentiation between single- and double-track sections of line, and a clear and comprehensive legend. And it all looks great in bright colours reversed out of a black background: very late 1970s corporate design! What’s not to love?

Of course, the nature of the Union Pacific network means the eastern half of the map looks a bit empty, but there’s not a lot that could have been done about that. And there’s one error on the West Coast that I noticed and seems to have persisted through a few iterations of the map (though it was correct in the photo I first saw) – the positions of Aberdeen and Hoquiam in Washington state are reversed.

Our final word: A fantastic piece of late-1970s corporate design. It’s no wonder they used this beauty for a few years!

Source: Union Pacific Historical Society (PDF link)

What I’m Up To and the Future of the Blog

July 6, 2024
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Hi, everyone – it’s been a while! Quite a few people have written in lately wondering why I haven’t updated the blog in a while, so I thought I should address that. Firstly, for those that were concerned something was wrong, I’d like to reassure you that I’m a-okay and everything is fine. I’ve just been engrossed in a new project, and as a result, the blog has gone into a bit of a hiatus – there’s only so many hours in the day, after all! To be honest, the blog has already succeeded well beyond my wildest dreams and contains a formidable archive of maps, reviews and tips and techniques, so I’m okay with it taking a little break.

So, what is this all-consuming project, you might ask? Basically, I’m writing a fully-comprehensive research wiki on the history of streetcars and electric interurbans in my adopted home town of Portland, Oregon. As many of you know, it’s a subject very near to my heart (with multiple maps made on the subject!), and it’s something I’m feeling very inspired about at the moment. Information on this subject is scattered about the internet on various sites (which aren’t always accurate), or is hidden away in lots of separate books, so I’m trying to create a comprehensive archive of verified primary-source information (mainly historical newspaper articles) to give definitive dates and details for all the streetcar companies, lines, infrastructure, and prominent people involved. The work is mainly trawling newspaper databases for relevant articles and transcribing and tagging them in a fully-searchable database for easy reference and cross-checking. I’ve already transcribed over 650 articles and I’m still only scratching the surface! You can check out the project here – Portland Streetcar History.

There’s still a lot to do: I’m currently working on filling out the maps gallery, which will hopefully become the largest repository of streetcar-era maps of Portland on the internet, all with links back to the original download source. I’m also hoping to create chronological maps of each line, so that you can see how each grew and changed over time – it’s going to be a lot of work, but worth it!

As work on this new project progresses, I can see myself start to return some time back to the blog, so it’s certainly not dead… just taking a little rest! Let me know what you think of my new project in the comments and, as always, thanks for your support!

Official Map: C-TRAN Bus Network, Vancouver, Washington, October 2023

October 16, 2023
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Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Transit Maps has never taken a look at the map for Portland’s northern neighbour, the (original) Vancouver. With the recent addition of their second “The Vine” BRT route along Mill Plain Boulevard, now seems like a good time.

At first glance, it seems to be a pretty solid map with some nicely simplified geography and routes clearly delineated. To my eyes, it seems to take some design cues from Spokane’s celebrated bus map (especially the dotted route lines for express services), though it’s certainly not as polished. However, closer inspection reveals a map that just seems really unfinished.

The first major problem? There’s no legend. There’s nothing on this map (or on the C-TRAN website) to quickly and easily explain what all the different lines and colours actually represent. The bold red and green “The Vine” lines are obvious enough, and you can intuit that the mid-blue lines are regular local bus services, but then why is Route 2 a slightly lighter colour? What does a thick dark blue route mean? Why is Route 105 a solid yellow line, when the 105X is a dotted yellow line? And then there’s the large green areas, which are meant to indicate C-TRAN’s “The Current” rideshare zones, but end up looking for all the world like parkland without a legend to tell you definitively otherwise.

Some digging around on C-TRAN’s website eventually gives the answer to some of these questions, but also raises more along the way. It looks like Route 2 is a lighter shade of blue because it only runs on weekdays? A thick dark blue line should indicate a “Regional” route, which for C-TRAN means that it provides connecting service into Portland but isn’t a downtown express route (these are the yellow lines). These routes all have “Regional” in their name with a “6x” route number, and require a higher fare than a local bus within Vancouver. This causes inconsistencies, however, as Route 71 is shown as a Regional bus when it runs entirely within Vancouver, and the “67 – Airport Regional” is incorrectly shown as a limited-stop local service (a light blue dotted line, which should be reserved for routes with a “4x” number). The only difference between the 105 and 105X that I can see is that the 105 stops in downtown Vancouver on its way to/from downtown Portland, which somehow makes it “local” enough to earn a solid route line? Strange.

Some other unfinished or inconsistent elements: there’s some explanatory text on top of the downtown area that looks like there should have been a white box behind it. Some similar routes merge into each other (see the 105X and the 190), while others run concurrent to each other. The way that the routes south of Fisher’s Landing get cut off by the edge of the canvas as they turn onto SR 14 is careless. All the routes that go off the map should have an indication of their final destination.

Our final word: The bones of something good, but just seems really unfinished. It’s almost as if some layers were turned off accidentally before the file was exported, because it’s hard to rationalise the complete absence of a legend for the map otherwise.

UPDATE 10/27/2023: The design team from C-TRAN reached out to me via a Twitter message to let me know that the map has been updated. The new version addresses just about every one of my concerns, and is a great improvement. The source link below should take you to the new map now.

Source: C-TRAN website

Historical Map: Lines of the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway, 1927

October 13, 2023
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Here’s a fascinating map of streetcar lines in Omaha, Nebraska in 1927, beautifully hand drawn on top of a pre-printed single colour map of the area produced by the City’s engineering department. Not only does the map show the extent of all the streetcar lines (with 64.6 miles of track), but also colour-codes them to show which predecessor company originally laid down the tracks. The original Omaha Horse Railway Company, founded in 1867, is represented by a healthy 12 miles of track! All the companies shown in the legend were absorbed by the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Company (O&CB) by 1902, which continued on as the Omaha Traction Company until being succeeded by Metro Area Transit in 1972. On this map, the “Council Bluffs” part of the name is only represented by showing the loop that cars used in Omaha to turn around.

It’s not quite clear who added the hand drawn elements to the map: the O&CB was a privately-run company, but the base map was drawn by city engineers. Text that reads “Exhibit No. 7” down the bottom right suggests that this is one of a series of maps, either about the streetcar system, or the city as a whole. A report to City Council? One thing is certain: the draftsmanship is meticulous in its execution, and the lettering used is superb!

Some historical notes: the City Superintendent named on the base map, Roy N. Towl, became mayor of Omaha in 1933 and served one term before continuing on as a city commissioner for many more years. The Omaha Traction Company itself is perhaps most infamously remembered for the violent streetcar strike of 1935, when the city was put under martial law to restore order.

Source: Omaha Public Library Digital Collections

Historical Map: San Joaquin County, California, c. 1910

October 11, 2023
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Here’s a beautiful old illustrative map – this is from a prospectus advertising the benefits of settling in San Joaquin County, California in 1910. Part of depicting this as a desirable place to live and do business is showing the multitude of modern railway lines – including several electric interurbans – almost all of which seem to converge upon Stockton, neatly in the middle of the map.

This being an advertising tool, the situation shown is one of a promised future – text beneath the map notes that some of the railroads are actually only partially built or planned… but they’ll be finished really soon, we promise! It’s a technique that was often used in sales brochures of the time: here’s another one from Pullman, Washington in 1911 that shows an electric interurban line from Colfax and Spokane that never actually got built.

The map itself is charming: mostly to scale, but with big chunky roads and railroad lines overlaid on top to emphasise their importance. Little trains chug along their lines, and the whole thing looks sort of like a Railroad Tycoon game in progress. The interesting colour palette is a result of the lithographic printing process, which didn’t use CMYK inks like modern printing. To me, this looks like three or four inks were used – black, sky blue, orange and perhaps yellow as well (the clean yellow areas just don’t look like a tint of the orange to me). The clever overlaying of these inks allows other colours like green and a darker blue to be created.

Our final word: Decorative and evocative; it does a good job of painting the county in the most positive light.

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection

Submission – Official Map: Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Map at Bergenline Avenue Station

October 9, 2023
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Submitted by Kara, who says:

At the (extremely cool) Bergenline Avenue station, [my partner and I] stumbled across this official map that I’d never seen before, depicting both the HBLR and the PATH! It was actually all over that station, and it’s definitely a relatively old map, because we also found a slightly different version (that matched the usual map by depicting the weekday-only line with a dashed stroke) that was dated to 2015.

I also have to give this map a major shout-out for a very clean and recognizable portrayal of the network, and for showing PATH connections clearly and thoroughly without cluttering the map or distracting from the HBLR routes. (And the stretched style of the transfer stations is absolutely lovely; I haven’t seen that anywhere before.) The font differences on the labels for Bergenline Avenue and the two train stations are basically my only gripes, as the map isn’t clear on what those mean. (Okay, I do also hate the little jog north of Richard St.)

Anyway, I think this map would honestly have the potential to be instantly recognizable if it were only used in more places, and I figured you and your readers deserve to see it too!

Transit Maps says:

Aaargh! This is so close to being great that it hurts. From Exchange Place upwards, it’s fantastic – clean and clear with a lovely and distinctive slanted angle that brings unity to the design… and then it all falls apart as soon as the lines turn the corner to Essex Street. Angled labels that are way too close to their station marker, wobbly route lines and weird clashing angles. It’s almost like two separate maps jammed together into one!

Kara’s right about the “stretched” transfer stations at Exchange Place and Newport, though – those are just lovely. And the PATH lines are dealt with fairly deftly as well: obviously subsidiary to the Hudson-Bergen lines, but visible enough to show the interconnection between the two systems. I’m not sure that “PATH” needs to be emblazoned on the lines three times, though… once is probably enough to be understood.

As far as the different font choices go, I’d say that the all-caps label at Bergenline Avenue is simply meant to be a “YOU ARE HERE” marker, while the treatment of Newark Penn and Hoboken Terminal is simply reflecting their relative importance as transit hubs. Yes, it could be explained in a legend, but I think the meaning is clear enough. The locality labels are set in the very old-fashioned Copperplate Gothic – that’s a first on a transit map for me!

Finally, I’m not sure about the map being old: there’s clearly a label that says “©2011–2020 New Jersey Transit Corporation” at the bottom right of the map, so it has to have been printed in 2020 or later, though it could perhaps represent a previous period in time. An oddity for sure. Is this map unique to this particular station?

Our final word: This diagram’s confidence seems to have deserted it halfway through, which is a pity. Committing to that stylish slanted angle from top to bottom would improve this immensely.