Those TriMet designers are at it again! Just a week or so after their superb TriMet/WMATA mash-up comes this new map that reimagines Portland’s MAX light rail as the Bay Area’s BART.
On first glance, it’s another near-perfect rendition of the source map and there’s a lot of neat touches. The reworking of TriMet’s logo to match BART’s famous lower-case “ba” logo is wonderful, and the accurate depiction of the Red Line’s corkscrew to get from Gateway up towards the airport is masterfully done. Reducing WES to the “Beige Line” seems somehow appropriate, and the call out box to show its limited hours is perfect.
A couple of minor quibbles: the real BART map contains no vertical route lines at all, so they look a little “wrong” here. However, rejigging all of them to the slight rightwards angle that BART uses would be problematic, so I can see why that’s been left out. Also, it looks like the typeface used is Akzidenz Grotesk, when BART uses Frutiger. Some more blue locality labels for Gresham, Beaverton, etc. would have been nice. Finally, a couple of typos that immediately stood out: “TRIMET sytem map” at top left, and “Albina/Missisissipi“.
A fun reaction to this one on Twitter:
So how does one get the job at TriMet that involves drawing the system map in the style of other transit systems? Asking for a friend… https://t.co/VP3XLvrozW
— Militant 'Alleged Shill for Big Muni' Pedestrian (@transbay) January 24, 2019
Here’s a handsome map from a prospectus produced in the early 20th century to promote the exclusive new Laurelhurst addition in Portland, Oregon. Prominently shown in yellow “gold” ink are the three streetcar lines that provided service to the neighbourhood — the Rose City Park line, the Montavilla line, and the Sunnyside line.
Streetcar lines to other parts of the city are also clearly shown, just not given the exclusive treatment of the other three. Downtown, the Portland Hotel is shown, which is now the location of Pioneer Courthouse Square. Also of interest are the names of other additions and neighbourhoods — some are still in use, like Ladd’s Addition, Irvington and Montavilla. Others not so much… the Tabasco Addition didn’t seem to catch on so well.
I’ve made a map of my hometown Copenhagen’s transit system as it will look from summer 2019, when the circle metro line opens after a ~10 year long construction phase. A regional rail line to Ringsted will open at the same time.
There are two local train systems in Copenhagen, S trains and Metro, but the official maps for the two systems use quite different map styles. Once the circle line opens, however, I feel that the two services should absolutely be combined in one map. I don’t know if there’s going to be an official combined map though, I haven’t seen any signs of it. I have used the current colors for the S train lines, but changed the metro line colors, as the official colors (green, yellow, blue, and orange) are too similar to the S train line colors, in my opinion. Also, I wanted the two systems to have a slightly different color scheme.
Transit Maps says:
I caught a glimpse of Kristoffer’s map on Twitter a little while back and liked what I saw, so I’m really pleased that he’s submitted the finished piece to the site. It’s a lovely map too, skillfully and confidently executed in a very clean and modern style. I particularly like the minimalist but effective legend at the bottom, and the colours throughout are gorgeous. The gradient in the water is particularly well-handled, as this type of effect often has the potential to look awful.
Kristoffer has resisted the temptation to make the “circle line” a literal circle, and I think it’s a wise choice – a circle wouldn’t fit in with the angularity of the rest of the map. The generous corner radii used help to soften the shape of the line, which works well.
Some minor things: I’m not too fond of having line bullets angled with their line, as it makes them a little harder to read and changes their shape relative to straight ones (a square becomes a diamond, for example). There’s probably a case for having the “C” line move over to run adjacent to the other lines between Svanemøllen and Hellerup stations, just to avoid the big gap between the lines at Hellerup. The little jog of the main line railway between Central and Nørreport could be a little smoother to be in keeping with the generous curves I mentioned before.
Our rating: Clean, modern and rather wonderful. If there is to be a unified rail map in Copenhagen’s future, can it look like this, please? Four stars.
A mid-1970s map of the LIRR, designed specifically to be given to “news media representatives who cover the Long Island Railroad (sic) and the MTA on a regular basis”, presumably to give them accurate facts at their fingertips when they wrote about the railroad. 234 miles of line! 700 scheduled trains a day!
It’s a curious thing, drawn precisely in parts (see the lines out of Jamaica) and very roughly in others; the illustration of the train below the map is almost child-like in its execution. Lots of hand-lettering.
The IRT’s connections between the LIRR at Long Island City/Hunterspoint Avenue and NY Penn Station seem rather overstated: the rainbow lines and pinwheel seem to suggest that all nine IRT lines (I correlated the colours and lines to the contemporaneous subway map) have a direct connection, when only the 7 provides one.
The very 1970s fat line “rising sun” LIRR logo to the top right of the map isn’t one I’ve seen before… some quick research suggests it was short-lived and not used publicly very much.
Hello! Rio de Janeiro has, now and finally, a new official map of all the metropolitan transport system. Here, we have BRT corridors, tramways, metro lines and a suburban rail, but each system used to have your own map in the stations. What you think about the design of it?
Transit Maps says:
The text on the government web page promoting this map roughly translates to: “This tool… aims to standardize the visualization of all transport services of high and medium capacities and the respective integrations available to users”, which is a very laudable goal. However, I’m not sure it’s totally successful, for a few reasons.
The lack of differentiation between modes is the biggest thing: almost every route, no matter the mode or frequency of service is the same exact thickness. As a result, there’s no hierarchy to the map at all. Personally, I would have made the Metro lines thicker and more prominent than everything else because of the higher frequency of service: it forms the literal backbone of the transit network. At the moment, actually finding the Metro on the map is a lot of hard work!
There’s also quite a few similar colours used for different lines throughout the map. The worst example of this is two Line 2s (Metro and light rail) that are both green. Speaking of which, the two systems should really use different nomenclature to allow them to be told apart more easily… Lines 1, 2 and 4 for the Metro, but Lines A, B and C for the light rail, for example.
Station labelling is somewhat inconsistent: some angled route lines use horizontal labels (mainly to the top of the map), while others have diagonal labels. Lots of intercity bus terminals to the right side of the map have their labels set at angles for no discernible reason. The coastline is generally simplified nicely, but the borders of the parklands are too detailed by comparison. There’s even one park to the west of Nilópolis that hasn’t been properly simplified to 45-degree angles! Including a note that the map is not to scale directly underneath a scale bar seems a little odd.
On the plus side, the layout is generally pleasing and the legend is quite comprehensive and well laid out.
Our rating: Promises a lot, but doesn’t quite deliver. Looks clean and modern, but not very intuitive or easy to use. Two-and-a-half stars.
TriMet just posted a new system map — that they themselves made — that’s a note-perfect homage to the Washington, DC Metro system map.
Just look at this work of art! It’s got thick route lines, tightly-set Helvetica, lush green parks, freeways and rivers. About the only thing missing are icons for the big tourist spots, like Powells Books or the Japanese Garden or Big Pink. Of course, TriMet has had to let everyone know that this is just for giggles and that the system map is not actually changing to this style. They’re also taking requests for their next mash-up… anyone got some fun ideas?
I’d be happy if you reviewed my new piece, unofficial transit map of Ukrainian city of Sumy featuring:
trolleybuses in the foreground and buses in the background,
close to real topology,
landmarks, city center map and other smaller features.
I’m sorry about Cyrillics but I feel like it shouldn’t matter much. Looking forward to what you think and thank you!
Transit Maps says:
Hey everyone, it’s the first published submission via the new, improved Submissions page, and isn’t it an absolute beauty? Seriously, I’m struggling to find things to critique about this – the contrast between trolleybus lines 13, 18 and 15/15A is a little low when they run concurrently towards the top of the map, and the light blue for the bus lines is perhaps just a little too recessive, but that’s pretty minor stuff.
The huge diagonal slash of the main routes through the city is just gorgeous, and – as Kostya notes – actually does reflect the real topology of the city quite well. Also of note is the hard drop shadow underneath the white station markers on the lighter-coloured route lines, which helps define them better than if there was no shadow. It’s a subtle but important addition that works nicely.
The more detailed central part of the city is well done, with its visible streets and softly-faded edges. The point-of-interest icons are serviceable enough, though perhaps the Central Market building needs a little more work to make it look more like the actual structure instead of a plain circle.
Our rating: Rather wonderful, and a great first post to launch the “new” Transit Maps. Four stars!
Hey, everyone – it’s official! Transit Maps has a new home, free of Tumblr and all the drama that goes with it at last. It’s been an interesting experience importing everything into WordPress, but I think almost everything has been transferred properly. There’s still a lot of clean up work to be done to format everything nicely, so please excuse any mess you might see. Everything from now back to the end of 2016 has been cleaned, as well as some other posts that have proved popular over time. The rest will be done as time allows.
So, what’s new?
There’s a whole new Submissions page, which actually sends you a notice that I’ve received anything that you send my way. Use it to send me maps for review, your thoughts, requests, etc.
The major types of maps – official, unofficial, fantasy, future, historical, etc. – are now WordPress categories instead of tags, which helps organise the site better. Check out the Archive page to see categories, the most popular tags, and the most recent posts.
Please “like” and leave comments on maps that interest you – the robust community discussion around featured maps is one of the best parts of the site, and I’d love that to continue.
If you’d like to be alerted by email when I post something new to the site, then add your email address to the subscription form at the bottom of this post. I’ll also continue to notify you of new posts on Twitter and the blog’s Facebook page.
That’s all for now – thanks to everyone for their support over the years and during this transition!
All transit maps should have their own cool launch video! And this one certainly makes the map look very intriguing, with its more geographically faithful and organic layout. The distinctive Hundekopf (dog’s head) shape of the S41/S42 Berlin Ringbahn is certainly very apparent! The larger font size is also quite obvious, even at a distance.
The only minor quibble I have about this video is that it calls this map “THE new map”, contrasting that against “the old map”. To some, that might imply that this is a new official BVG map, which it isn’t.
You can see a high-res version of the map here, and prints are available here.
Sent my way by Marcin Wichary on Twitter is this rather adorable little illustrated map. It’s from the front page of a leaflet issued to introduce new – and quite substantial – changes to routes in San Francisco, moving from a radial pattern that centred on downtown to more of a gridlike pattern covering the whole city. The changes also introduced the concept of timed transfers at some stations to eliminate long waits for transfers.
The illustration is simple but charming, with a rather lovely Sutro Tower right in the middle and a modern (for 1982!) streetcar emerging from the Twin Peaks tunnel below – the problematic Boeing-Vertol LRV.
Also of note for all the pedants out there who insist that “Muni” has to be styled in caps/lower case as it’s short for “municipal” and not an acronym – Muni itself styled it as all-caps back in 1982!
