Submission – Unofficial Map: Amsterdam Metro Maps by Michiel Straathof

May 11, 2018
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Submitted by Michiel, who says:

This is my first attempt at drawing a transit map (or using Inkscape for that matter). It’s Amsterdam’s metro system, which is a relatively simple system. The zones, on the other hand, are not! You can check out the outrageous zoning of Amsterdam’s public transport system here. Some stations lie on zone borders, which means you can travel from within either of those zones to that station while staying in a single zone. Other stations lie very close to borders, but are not on it. All very confusing, but with some help of the Amsterdam public transport company (GVB) I figured it out.

Transit Maps says:

For a first effort, these are rather lovely, Michiel! I like the intelligent use of 60-degree angles to mimic the real-world layout of Amsterdam, and the way that the new Noord-Zuid line slashes through the centre of the map, and the way that that diagonal then continues all the way down to Westwijk… a great visual axis for the whole map.

Of the two, I have to say that I prefer the zone-free version, although I can understand the usefulness of the one featuring zones. I find the colours a little too bright, and the shapes a little too blobby… smaller corner radii might help here. The zone colours are unfortunately at their worst in the Amsterdam Centrum zone, where the grey is so tonally similar to the blue of the canals that it makes them difficult to make out. One has to ask why this zone needs a background colour at all. It’s surrounded by other zones and the IJ, so it could quite easily remain white. This would also draw attention to its pre-eminence as the most important/most central zone of the network.

While we’re speaking of zones, is it necessary to show zones that can’t be reached by Metro on this map? See 5710 and 5714…

Now the big problem: for three-quarters of the map, you do a great job of labeling all the stations horizontally… but then you get to the south-east corner and everything is suddenly angled. It looks strangely inconsistent, and it’s pretty much the first thing I noticed about the map. With some tweaking, I think that you could get everything nice and straight. The hardest part will be Veensepolder and Diemen Zuid, but once you solve that, everything else should fall into place pretty easily.

Submission – Unofficial Map: Los Angeles Metro Map Redesign, Showing Lines Operational by 2028

May 11, 2018
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Submitted by Julian, who says:

I was compelled to redesign my town’s transit map after reading a comment on LA’s map during the World Cup that said a detracting feature was that it looked “empty.” I try to solve this problem by both bringing more balance to the arrangement of the lines and giving a sense of geographical context with regional borders. I tilted north 45 degrees to create the pleasing visual effect of the two longest lines, the A and E, diverging to each side of the map in an even split, and did the same for the branching of the A and C. It really drives home the radial nature of the network, along with the large geographical distortion of the compact downtown core, which is meant to have a distinctive, almost symbolic shape. The two major diversions from geographical accuracy are the G portrayed as going north at first, the K going southwest south of Inglewood and LAX, and the A east of South Pasadena. The first two done for aesthetic purpose and balance; the last for lack of space (if you look at the current and future foothill extension on an actual map you’ll see why it’s so hard to fit in).

Metro already has a system of showing neighborhoods and regions on its map, but with labels floating freely in a vast white space detached from each other, they almost do the opposite of provide geographical context. Dividing the map into sectors divides the big white space into more manageable sections that can be understood in relation to what they border. Lastly, the river unified the map and further deters the notion that the service area is a vast space devoid of distinguishing geographical features.

Transit Maps says:

Yes, I recall this map being brought to my attention during the Transit Maps World Cup, with the note that it portrayed the Regional Connector particularly well, and it certainly does do that. What people think of the rest of the map probably directly relates to where they fall on the geographical map versus schematic diagram scale.

Topologically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with this map at all – everything connects properly to everything else and it can easily be used to navigate the network. However, Greater Los Angeles is pretty much defined by its long north-south avenues and boulevards, especially to the south of the central business district, so tilting most of the map at a 45-degree angle is quite jarring. It’s especially noticeable on the “D” Metro Line and the “J” Busway, as they run on I-105 and I-110, which go straight east-west and north-south respectively. Sometimes this kind of distortion is forgiven (see Boston’s schematic treatment of the Green Line branches), but sometimes it just messes too much with people’s perceptions of their city.

That said, the diagram itself is rather wonderful, with some great use of reflected symmetry and some very languid curves. I like the idea of visually breaking up the map into discrete sectors (not cities, thankfully, as that could quickly get messy), though I think the labels along the boundaries are probably a little small. Labels are a bit on the small side overall, and there’s a little bit of uneven spacing. The “A” line between Slauson and Willowbrook stands out the most in that regard.

If nothing else, this is a confidently unique take on the LA Metro map, and that has to be applauded. More unofficial maps should push the boundaries a bit more instead of treading the same old path… see what can be done!

Submission – Unofficial map: Israel Railways by David Rendsburg

May 10, 2018
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Submitted by David, who says:

Attached is a redesign of the Israel Railways map – which was a mess when you reviewed it in 2013 and has only gotten decidedly worse since the system has expanded (most recent here). There are some glaring issues with the official map, such as the mix of angles and the terrible spacing of the lines and stations, but also geographically it is starting to make less and less sense, and some stations are no where near their labels in the area south of Tel Aviv. I decided to tackle a redesign as my first ever map, and even though I only have InDesign to work with I think it did the job.

For my version, I decided to rely on the coast line as the main geographical marker and anchor to the other lines head inland, and felt that the two night lines would be a nice visual cue to the coast as well (with the added benefit of showing the transfer between the two lines).  Despite the curve the map didn’t seem to work as as a radial map, so instead the coast is 1/8 of a circle and all diagonal lines on the map match the angle in the center at HaHagana (22.5*), which allowed the main bunch of lines turning inland using a nice 90* angle. I also worked to declutter some of the map by making the only line crossings be south of Tel Aviv and having the main “through lines” from Tel Aviv to Haifa be adjacent. It seems that since you reviewed the map in 2013, it seems that they moved away from bilingual maps (they have Hebrew, English, Arabic, and Russian). Still, my feeling was that they did this more out of laziness, and that it should be possible to have 3 maps, with other translations replacing the English on my version. The system is rapidly expanding – I added on the new High Speed Line that was just delayed from opening this summer to 2019, and the map is mostly future proof for new tracks being built. One final note is that while the jog up north by Haifa is not necessary, any Israeli drawing a map of Israel starts by drawing the coast and the jog for the Bay of Haifa, so it is actually a pretty defining geographical feature which was simple enough to include. The seas on the far right are really for fun, although future lines will go right up to the Kinneret up north and close to the Dead Sea down south, so eventually they would be more helpful geographic markers than they are now. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Transit Maps says:

Wait, you did this in InDesign?! That makes this map even more note-worthy than it already is, because I find drawing in InDesign to be a right royal pain in the behind and will go out of my way to avoid it as much as possible (and I spend a lot of time in InDesign!).

As for the map itself – this is phenomenal work, David, and is far more worthy as a national rail system’s map than the official version, which has definitely degenerated since my last review. Almost everything in this works well, especially the frankly inspired use of the large arc to define the Mediterranean coastline and the yellow boxes to group and denote the major urban areas. Spatially, the whole thing just makes far more sense than the scaleless official diagram.

The area just to the south of Tel Aviv is a little chaotic with the red and lime green route lines criss-crossing on top of each other and hiding the night line out to the airport in the process. If these could be staggered a little bit from each other, crossing adjacent to each other instead of on top, that might help a bit.

There’s only two things I don’t really like – the traditional “railroad” ticking on the planned high-speed line (this type of ticking always makes me think of old steam trains, which is hardly what you’re after with an HSR line!), and the leader line pointing to Hod HaSharon-Sokolov station. It’s the only one on the map, and it just stands out like a sore thumb.

However, these are very minor quibbles – I really, really like this map and it is a billion times better than the official one. Great work, David!

Submission – Fantasy Map: Rapid Transit of Bogotá, Colombia by @tiburonvolador

May 10, 2018
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Submitted by tiburonvolador, who says:

An imaginary interpretation of of what a fully fledged underground rapid transit system and rail map would look like in Bogotá, Colombia.

I designed the map with heavy influence from the London Underground. The system has 9 lines named after events, places and famous people.

I designed it as an experiment in art in design for a city that needed a cathartic respite from a daily life of stress and lousy public transportation. It is not designed with any technical knowledge or with professional considerations. It is essentially a map drawn from the gut.

The black lines representing commuter and intercity rail are mostly laid out over existing but abandoned track from almost a century ago. Rehabilitating these lines for modern transport is borderline impossible. Thousands of cars cross over these lines daily and the space around them has become so tight that laying down standard-gauge double track would severely disrupt city life.

The city has been squabbling and delaying plans for rail transport since the 60’s. Almost all administrations in the last 30 years have promised to build a subway/underground system but have fallen short of their promises.

The current administration has proposed an overground system that is certain to disrupt the current cityscape in a way the majority of the population is deeply concerned about. It has been labeled a ‘immediate and pleasing’ initiative meant to calm the masses instead of committing to a long term underground solution that could mean a better quality of life in the future. An underground line would only open as early as 2026, but the current overground plans would be ready by 2021.

Transit Maps says:

A nice effort here, though I have to say I actually get more of a Madrid Metro vibe from this than a London Underground one… something to do with the shapes made by the lines interacting, perhaps?

I do think that the heavy black lines used for the commuter rail services are too dominant compared to the actual rapid transit lines, and there’s also a bit of a contrast problem when they run adjacent to the dark blue Bochica line – the lines are very similar tonally and seem to bleed into each other. Best practice these days leaves a thin gap between adjacent lines to prevent this from happening (although incidentally, London is actually one of the few maps that still butts colours right up to each other). As this map is pure fantasy, you could also look at swapping the colours on a couple of lines to achieve maximum contrast here – it looks like the only place where the commuter rail runs directly next to another line.

The icons for accessibility and bus stations don’t scale down that well, especially compared to the thick, simple, lines of the bike parking icon. Work at bringing more consistency to your icons so that they’re a cohesive and unified set.

Overall, this is a good solid effort, and is obviously a work of some importance to you. Keep refining this, trying to simplify as much as possible – less wiggles in the routes! – and this could be really nice.

Historical Map: Map Showing the Great Coal Fields, Natural Gas Fields, Steam and Electric Railroads: and All Important Towns, Villages, and Streams Tributary to Columbus Within a Radius of 70 Miles

May 8, 2018
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Phew – that’s quite the title, but what an amazing map!

Using a sort of azimuthal projection, it places Columbus seemingly at the centre of the world, with a “horizon” of 70 miles in all directions. Towns, natural resources and the many and varied railroads of the time all radiate out from this mighty epicentre in great detail, receding into the distance as the scale diminishes on the outer edges. Clever use of a limited colour palette – just black, gold and blue – helps to create a sense of depth, with subtle shading and the blue outer edges creating a very convincing effect. Of course, the main interest for me are the rail lines, with both steam and electric lines criss-crossing the landscape to distant points.

Our rating: A unique perspective, executed wonderfully. I’ve not seen many maps like this, and this is one of the finest examples I have. Four stars!

Prints of this map are now available in the Transit Maps store!

Source: UConn Archives

Transit Maps World Cup Recap!

May 3, 2018
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So, after almost a month, 32 matches, and some 37,000 votes, the inaugural Transit Maps World Cup has reached its conclusion. Unexpectedly, perhaps, the victor wasn’t London, Moscow or one of the other pre-tournament favourites, but the Santiago Metro of Chile.

Without a doubt, this win was engineered by a huge social media blitz within Chile which mobilized a large number of people to vote for “their” map. I don’t really think that the Metro itself was entirely responsible for this, as the groundswell of support started more organically than that and only spread to the Metro Twitter account in full for the semi-final and final. The Chilean Ministry of Transportation also got involved, and even the Mayor of Santiago tweeted about it. If that wasn’t surreal enough, Channel 13 produced a four-minute news report about the final result, and the tournament also got coverage in local press. No other city came close to matching the passion and word-of-mouth that Santiago produced, though Vancouver and Sao Paulo also had some good social media efforts. Unfortunately for Vancouver, they came up against Santiago in the Round of 16, so their efforts went in vain.

And therein lies the rub. I can’t exactly praise Vancouver for their outreach efforts (which included posting on their blog to give actual concrete reasons why their map was awesome) and then turn around and denounce Santiago for doing much the same. A huge part of winning any election is “getting the vote out”, and Santiago did that more effectively than anyone else. In a way, I set myself up for this with the format of the competition, as an open poll on the internet is always susceptible to some sort of manipulation. I guess I’m actually lucky that the winner didn’t end up being “Mappy McMappyface”.

Do I personally think that the Santiago map is the best rapid transit map in the world? Absolutely not. In my opinion, the Moscow map is head and shoulders above everything else that’s around at the moment, honed and battle-tested over years of revision and testing, complex yet clear, and future-proofed for the next few decades at least. It’s a phenomenal piece of work and I’m in awe of how good it is. The Santiago map is better than average, and I perhaps underestimated its clear simplicity, but I don’t see it as a world beater.

In the end, though, I’m not really sure that the winner even matters that much. For me, the best part of the tournament was the conversation and discussion that it created on the way. The often completely diametrical viewpoints on what makes a “good” transit map were fascinating and illuminating. Geography versus topology? Street grid or abstraction? Points of interest or a blank canvas? Some maps were definitely held to more exacting standards than others, being brought to task for blemishes that were excused on other “lesser” maps.

Size and complexity of networks was also a hot topic, with both large and small systems accused of having an inherent “advantage” over the other. Smaller systems are easier to depict neatly, said some. Complex networks look more impressive, others replied. It’s impossible to compare a large network to a small one, said yet others. I don’t really agree with this, otherwise almost seven years of giving maps a numerical rating on this blog would have been a complete waste of time. Regardless of network size, a map can still be terrible or amazing, depending on the design choices made. I’ve seen large systems made crystal clear and small systems made an incomprehensible mess, all because of decisions made by the map’s designers. Perhaps a better way to frame the voting would be to ask, “which of these two maps does a better job of representing/depicting/clarifying the transit network shown?” rather than the simple “which is better?” question used in this tournament. Food for thought!

So what now? First off – a break until 2020, I think. Like the real event, a World Cup every year would be too much of a good thing, and I don’t want to wear out my welcome too fast.

Also, a change of format from the 32-team knockout to a 16-team competition with four groups of four cities. The initial round would be round-robin within each group, with the top two teams from each group going through to knockout quarter finals. The top eight teams from this edition automatically qualify, with the other eight to be selected and seeded by some yet-to-be-determined means before the 2020 tournament starts.

Finally, the polling method needs a rethink. I like the immediacy of Twitter and the discussion it can instantly generate, but it’s obviously the easiest format to influence via retweets and social media interactions. I don’t want to make participation difficult or exclusionary, though, so I’ll have to put some thought into this…

Finally, an enormous thank you to EVERYONE who participated and made the tournament far larger and more interesting than I ever hoped it could be. And hang around, there’s lots coming up on the blog that I hope you’ll find interesting!

All the best,

Cameron
Transit Maps, 2018 

Submission – Official Map: New BART Extension to Antioch

April 30, 2018
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Submitted by Josh, who says:

Hey there! Curious about your thoughts on what looks like BART’s decision to not show its new eBART line as a separate line.

If you haven’t been following it – instead of extending BART from its northeast terminus at Pittsburg/Bay Point, it instead built a two-station extension built to standard railroad gauge (BART uses Indian gauge) and running light rail DMUs. There’s a separate transfer platform at Pittsburg/Bay Point where you change from the DMU to a standard BART train, and in theory the transfers should always be timed so that you can just walk across the platform to switch trains immediately upon arrival.

I expected this line to be shown on maps sort of like Boston does with the Ashmont-Mattapan line – same color as the regular line but an indication of a discontinuity – but instead it seems they’re just showing it as a part of the regular line. Curious on your thought on this! My immediate reaction was that it’s smoothing over a sort of hack that allowed them to extend the line for cheaper at the cost of less than fully integrated service, and would cause confusion for people who don’t know the full story and who board the yellow line expecting a one-seat ride to Antioch. On the other hand, I’m not sure if there’s any decision a rider would make based on this map that would be incorrect. Since displays at BART stations show final destinations when trains arrive, maybe someone won’t get on a Pittsburg/Bay Point train because they’ll be waiting for an Antioch-bound train that never comes?

Transit Maps says:

I’ve talked about this on Twitter a couple of times, but I’ll say it again: I don’t like it. 

My personal opinion is that if you make your customers physically get up, leave a train, cross a platform and board another train to continue their journey, then you need to show that on your map, even if only to help people with accessibility needs understand what they’re in for at Pittsburg/Bay Point. Note also that transfers there are only timed in the peak travel direction. Riders traveling the opposite way can be waiting up to eight minutes, according to BART’s FAQ.

Showing that discontinuity in the route could be as simple as butting two “terminus bars” up to each other at Pittsburg/Bay Point, as I’ve quickly mocked up in the right image above.

(Side note: why is the only map on the BART website a tiny 500×500 pixel PNG? That’s not even high enough resolution to work on my phone screen, let alone my Retina Display iMac!)

BART obviously has its reasons for deciding to show the trip as a seamless journey – I believe signage has also been altered to show Antioch as the “end of the line” – but I feel it’s a little bit disingenuous to do so. It’s not a “one seat ride” from Millbrae or SFO to Antioch, no matter how much they try to sell it as one. 

Submission – Official Map: Map of NJ Transit Bus Services in Hudson County

April 17, 2018
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Submitted by Maxwell Robb, who says

I saw this map last year in Hoboken Station in NJ. I was rather shocked, I’ve never really seen a bus map quite like it. It appears that NJ Transit has made them for every county. I’m curious about your thoughts.

Transit Maps says:

I’ve seen these NJ Transit bus maps a few times over the years, and I’ve never really been impressed by them. For me, the colours have always seemed very muddy and strangely difficult to distinguish from each other. I wondered whether it was to aid colour-blind users, but a quick visit to the proofing mode in Photoshop shoots that down – the blue and purple end up looking extremely similar for such users. Finally, it dawned on me that the three colours – orange, purple and blue – are seemingly used simply because they’re in the agency’s logo… which isn’t necessarily a great criterion for selecting colour palettes for a map.

The actual mapping isn’t that great either: the different municipalities within the county are simplified to the most basic shapes, but the routes twist and tangle their way across the map in a very convoluted way. It’s just about okay in the less complex southern and western parts of the map, but the north and eastern parts of the map are an awful mess. That afore-mentioned low contrast between the route colours doesn’t help matters, either. Lots of tiny route numbers and callout boxes add to the chaos. There’s some rail services buried way at the bottom of all of this as well, but good luck working with those.

Our rating: There’s no doubt that NJ Transit is an unenviable position – their network basically covers the entire state, and finding an effective way of representing that in a cohesive and attractive manner across a number of county maps is a Herculean task. I do applaud them for trying something a little out of the box, but I just don’t think it really works as it stands. A rethink of the colour palette to provide contrast between adjacent route lines and even more simplification of the routes could help. 2 stars.

Submission – City of Nottingham Transport Maps, 1970s, Designed by Roy Manterfield

April 13, 2018
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Sent my way by Roy himself are these two marvellous diagrams of bus routes in Nottingham, England. The first is from April 1975 and shows the two free downtown circulator bus routes, which certainly seemed to take quite the torturous route through some narrow old streets.

The second map is from July 1979, and shows the entire bus network in diagrammatic form. The routes are colour-coded based on their direction from the city centre, not unlike this contemporaneous Portland, Oregon TriMet bus map, with white routes indicating cross-town “suburban” routes.

Of particular note is the striking black background, bright colours and bold sans serif typography – this is very much a product of its era, though it still looks pretty fresh even today. The approach to locality names on the full map is interesting: they’re very large, but are layered behind everything else, even if that means that some of the label is obscured by route lines. Despite this, they’re still mostly legible because of the large font size. A clever touch to make things work with limited space. Possibly the least successful part of the map is the treatment of the River Trent: its crinkly “wave” edges seem a little light in comparison with the other elements of the map, and the whole element just recedes a little too far into the background for me.

The main map is also notable for offering the most apologetically British explanation of “Not to Scale” that I’ve ever come across:

Not to Scale
To present the information on this map as clearly as possible, the bus routes have been drawn diagrammatically and the city centre has been considerably enlarged.

Wonderful. Four stars!

Submission – Unofficial Map: Brown University Shuttle Bus by Michael Kearney

April 9, 2018
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Submitted by Michael, who says:

My university redid the branding of their shuttle service recently, officially called the BUS (Brown University Shuttle) but called just “the shuttle” by students. They color-coded the bus lines and put up new signs. The only thing the signs are missing, though, is a map. I took it upon myself to make one.

Because distances between stops are fairly short, having some streets and greens was important to help orient users. Another thing I struggled with was elegantly showing direction of travel. The arrow system looks fine, but I’m wondering if it’s clear enough.

One important thing to note is that the green and yellow lines only run during the day (for university employees/medical students to get between the main East Side campus and the Jewelry District site), and the purple and blue lines only run at night (for undergraduates to get around campus safely, quickly, and warmly). In fact, I think that the transport operator subcontractor may just switch the shuttles on the yellow/green lines to the blue/purple lines right at 7pm to avoid a trip back to the shuttle depot.

At a first glance of the map, it might seem like all the lines run simultaneously. I included the legend in an attempt to prevent this, but I’m not sure it’s enough. Do you know of a more intuitive, visual way to convey this information? Or is making two separate maps just the way to go?

Transit Maps says:

First off – nice work on this map, Michael! It’s very clean and simple, but with enough geographical detail to orient users, especially the campus greens. It does what it needs to do very efficiently. I think the arrows are fine, though you could experiment with a couple of alternatives to see if anything works that little bit better.

As for differentiating the daytime and nighttime routes, I think it would be weird to have two separate maps when they would only show two routes each. The colours do some of the work for you in that yellow and green are brighter, more “day-like” colours, while the purple and blue are colder, darker “night” shades. You could present the evening lines as dashed routes (or some other immediately obvious difference), but after some thought, I believe the simplest option is to just make your legend more explicitly obvious. A big heading that says “Daytime Routes, Monday to Friday, 7am–7pm” with the green and yellow routes underneath it, then another big heading that says “Evening Routes, Monday to Sunday, 7pm–late” with the information for the purple and blue lines following. Don’t make your readers search all four routes to find that information, present it up front. Hope this helps a bit!