Q Hi, do you have a map of Los Angeles back from the late 70s? Am looking for any kind of transit map but haven’t found anything yet. Would be a huge help. Thanks in advance!
A The LA Metro Archives has some 1970s bus maps available (there was no rail service in the 1970s, though there are some early planning documents). Specifically answering your request, here’s the SCRTD bus map from January 1979. You can see the entire list of maps available in the digital archives here (and there are a LOT, from 1880–2016).
Presented here are 32 cities from around the world (12 from the Americas, 12 from Europe and 8 from Asia), representing a wide range of rail-based rapid transit map design. They’re arranged into four groups of eight: the Red and Blue Lines contain cities from the Americas, while the Green and Orange Lines are comprised of European cities. The 8 Asian cities have been spread evenly across the four groups and seeded so that they can’t knock each other out before the quarter finals (if they make it that far!).
The mechanics are simple: it’s a straight knock-out tournament. Win your match and you’re through to the next round. Lose and you’re out.
Starting on Wednesday, April 4th, I’ll post a Twitter poll on my @transitmap account for matches using the hashtag #wctransitmaps. Each poll will run for 24 hours, after which a winner will be declared. I plan on doing two matches per weekday, at least in the initial rounds, just to keep the tournament rolling along at a brisk pace. Starting times will be at 6am and noon Pacific Daylight Savings Time precisely for each match – hooray for scheduled tweets! See the schedule for the Round of 32 match-ups below and get ready to vote!
When voting, I ask you to consider the design of the current official transit map for each city as found on the agency’s website and make your judgment as to which of the two maps you consider best. Of course, how you define “best” is entirely up to you. There’s a complete list of links to the relevant maps at the bottom of this post. Remember that this event is just for fun, and is wholly unscientific. Also remember that the more people who participate, the more fun the tournament will be – so be sure to retweet and share each match poll as it comes out to maximize the visibility of the competition.
The graphic at the top of this post will be updated as each match ends, reflecting the progression and elimination of cities from the tournament. If you’re so inclined, you can download your own copy of the bracket to follow along, or you can try to predict the final result by filling in the bracket before the tournament starts. Share your brackets on Twitter with the hashtag #wctransitmaps for everyone to see. Boasting rights for perfect brackets!
Schedule for The Finals
MONDAY, APRIL 30 6am: Third Place Playoff: Boston vs. London – LONDON WINS!
I’m quite taken by this interesting vision of Boston in an alternative future – one where the elevated rapid transit lines were never torn down, but instead upgraded to be part of a comprehensive and dense transit system. As well as these old lines (and the Watertown “A” branch of the Green line and the full length of the “E” branch!), Amy also adds in other proposed additions to the network like the Green Line Extension, the conversion of the Fairmont commuter rail line to rapid transit, the Circle Line and even the Seaport gondola from South Station to Marine Park (incorrectly spelled as “Millenium Line” in the legend).
There’s some nice design touches in the map: the even space between all the 45-degree lines running from SW to NE is very pleasing and sets up a nice internal grid for the whole map. The reflected “wing” pattern made by the loops at the end of the SL1 and SL2 lines – here promoted to full rail rapid transit – is likewise a great little visual hook and is executed very deftly.
There are a couple of problems in my eyes, though. The regular spacing over much of the map means that there’s a couple of places where things have to be spaced much further apart to make things fit: the northern half of the Red Line is the most obvious example, with huge gaps between Kendall, Central and Harvard before tighter spacing again up to Alewife. I also think the big gaps between labels on the Green Line branches as they change from a 45-degree angle to vertical need to be looked at and respaced. It is possible to get even spacing between labels when a line goes around a corner with a little thought and effort. I find that it often works best to get the labels looking right, rather than the “ticks”. The overall generous spacing between stations means that the labels are all perhaps a little small in the context of the while map.
Also, if the “Yawkey” on this map is meant to be connected to the current commuter rail station (and the light purple diamond indicating a rail connection seems to suggest that it is), then it’s in the wrong spot: It should be down between Kenmore and the Green Line “D” branch, which might require a little bit of reworking to make fit pleasingly.
Our rating: A solid effort with great visual appeal and some good research. Some uneven spacing here and there affects the overall balance, but not horrendously. Three-and-a-half stars.
Head over to Amy’s design site for more details on the project – there are also prints for sale.
Had a chance to visit Morocco last week; the Casablanca tram map has both a network map (operating and lines under construction) and a travel time map between key stations.
Transit Maps says:
It’s not really much to look at, and there’s some odd design choices as well. Whose choice for the first two lines in a network are orange and yellow? There’s definitely a little bit of Parisian influence to be seen in the round “T for Tram” logo and line number bullet, which is perhaps not surprising seeing as the RATP Group currently holds the contract for operation of the system.
The map struggles manfully with the need to label everything in French and Arabic (and the legend throws English into the mix as well), though there’s some weirdly angled type because of this. It all ends up looking a bit random and haphazard, unfortunately.
The travel time map, on the other hand, is actually quite nicely done. Neat and simple, it conveys information effectively with a minimum of fuss. Some of the labels are jammed in oddly because of the strange little shape the map has to fit into, but overall, I quite like this addition.
Our rating: The exceedingly average main map earns just 1 star, but the travel time map bumps the whole thing up to two.
Charlotte’s LYNX light rail opened an extension of its Blue Line today, and a few eagle-eyed correspondents were quick to alert me to the new in-car strip map, as seen in this tweet by Steve Harrison, a reporter covering the opening ceremonies. After some poking around, I also found the artwork for the map here, which gave me a clearer look at it. You can see this version of the map as the first image above.
In short, this is not a good map, especially when you consider its placement above the doors of the train. The labelling is absolutely tiny, and the station names are at a neck-cracking 80 degree angle from the horizontal. The icons and numbers for connecting bus services under each station are absolutely minuscule: there’s absolutely no way possible anyone’s going to be able to read them from three or four feet away on a moving train. The bus icons are also overly detailed – zooming right in on the artwork JPG allowed me to see that they have bicycles mounted on front racks as part of their design!
Then there’s the spacing of the stations. While I guess it’s meant to give an indication of real world distances between stops, it’s completely unnecessary for a strip map like this, which really has just one purpose: to tell the rider how many stops there are until their destination. To that end, the inclusion of Interstate highways is also largely unwarranted, especially I-77 and I-85, which don’t really interact with the light rail line at all.
So, as is my wont, I’ve done a lightning quick one hour redesign to show how it could be better, just by considering the map’s end use and applying some common-sense design principles. My version is the second image above. Note that I’ve retained the vertical LYNX Blue Line branding panel to the left of the map. I don’t particularly like it – way too much Serpentine Bold Oblique for me! – but it does allow a like-for-like comparison.
First off, labels are much bigger for readability at a distance, and station names are only angled at 45 degrees for easier reading. Stations are evenly spaced along the length of the line to make station counting a much simpler task, and the two different types of stations are denoted by very different icons so that they can be told apart quickly. The connecting bus information is now larger and more legible, and the bus icon is a much simpler, more readily identifiable shape. Uptown Charlotte – the part contained within the I-277 loop – is simply indicated with some light shading, which sets it apart as being important without being too overpowering.
Finally, the final northbound and southbound destinations have been called out more explicitly than on the original map, which vaguely points “To I-485″ when parts of that Interstate can be seen at both ends of the map (as it’s a loop around the city).
To be clear, there’s nothing particularly special about my reworking – it’s a very quick, workmanlike redesign – but that’s kind of the point. Some simple adherence to good design principles and an understanding of the environment that the map will be used in have resulted in something that I think is far more legible and useful.
I have other issues with the original map, like the fact that the Charlotte Transportation Center doesn’t have any of its bus or streetcar connections shown, but they’re outside the scope of this quick redesign. Thoughts and comments on this are welcome!
An illustration commissioned by Empire magazine to outline the movement of characters in the film adaptations of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth sagas. Certainly not the first transit map-styled representation of Middle-Earth I’ve seen, but definitely one of the most information-rich and attractive, even if the route lines don’t always completely gel with the isometric background.
Also, Christian’s rendition of Smaug is nothing short of magnificent. 4 stars!
Here’s a rather charming illustrated map showing the Bay Area’s BART commuter rail system as it looked in early 1989, plus a glimpse into the future as it was envisioned at the time. I particularly like the little details in this map – drawn by Art Richardson of BART’s “Documentation Division” back in 1983, it would seem – all the bridges are drawn accurately, and the skylines of San Francisco and Oakland are also well rendered. Look at the cute little Ferry Building and Transamerica Pyramid!
Some of it is quite familiar – the line to SFO (though San Bruno was named “Tanforan”) and the Warm Springs/Milpitas extension, for example – but some of it is far less so. A line from Walnut Creek directly down to West Dublin/Pleasanton? An extension past Richmond all the way to Crockett? Or continuing from Concord past Pittsburg out to East Antioch? BART were definitely dreaming big back in the late 1980s.
Our rating: Looks gorgeous, and a fascinating historical document to boot. Four stars!
Montreal’s transit agency recently redesigned its commuter rail map, and I think it looks awful compared to the old one! They’ve added so much clutter, by indicating literally every commuter bus line in the city (and even illustrating which segments of the lines run on bus lanes) and using thick, colourful lines for the metro. The downtown segment is almost unreadable!
Transit Maps says:
Yeah, I have to agree with Ruofan’s summary of this map… this is pretty terrible stuff. Generally, if an inset map doesn’t actually make anything clearer, then you have to question its inclusion. All this one seems to do is make the mess of the central area ever so slightly larger…
As usual with a geographical transit map that covers a large area, there’s a lot of empty space that could be better utilised by expanding the central area for clarity and compressing the outlying areas. As it is, I’m really not sure that the addition of the Metro and the (unnumbered) commuter bus lines actually adds any useable information to the map, just a lot of noise.
Our rating: Cluttered, messy and unattractive. 1 star.
This is one of those maps where I’m not entirely sure if it’s the brainchild of a genius or the work of a madman. It’s an insanely detailed map-slash-diagram of tram routes in Sydney from 1921 by an unknown author that also attempts to indicate almost every major cross-street along the way. Intersections that are also designated as tram stops get a marker and increasingly larger labels to indicate their relative importance. Five different line styles attempt to make some sort of sense of where lines run between, but it’s all a bit messy and incoherent on the page. Throw in the main line railways and ferry routes, and this map is trying to do an awful lot of work.
The map is relatively geographically accurate in the city and in the eastern suburbs, but everything outside of that is crammed into increasingly small spaces, leading to everything from Ashfield westwards to Parramatta and Castle Hill being jammed into the first column of the map’s grid. Castle Hill also ends up looking like it’s roughly level with Gladesville, when it’s much further north in reality. All the edges of the map are like this, with everything jammed in however it will fit, causing massive distortions to river courses and the coastline.
Despite this, the rich detail of the map makes it fascinating. Of particular note is how divided the city is at this point in its history: no Harbour Bridge or Spit Bridge means travellers had to transfer from trams or trains to ferries to continue their journey at these points.
Our rating: A glorious mess, but an invaluable resource for anyone researching the history of trams in Sydney. I definitely recommend heading over to the National Library of Australia’s website and checking out the full high-res version of this one. Five stars!
Created on behalf of a new advocacy group for true high-speed rail in the Pacific Northwest – the aptly named CascadiaRail – this is probably my favourite map of 2018 so far. It’s clear, beautiful, representative of the region, and is wonderfully aspirational – presenting a clear and exciting vision of a possible future.
I especially like that there’s no state or national borders shown at all: the region is instead defined by the natural geographical features that are such a part of its character: mountains, forested valleys, desert plains and mighty rivers.
Each of the four major Cascades peaks shown are depicted accurately – Mount Hood looks exactly like Mount Hood, for example – and they also have an extra layer of hidden meaning. As Oran told me today, these four mountains – Mount Baker, Mount Olympus, Mount Rainier and Mount Hood – also lent their names to the original four Amtrak Cascades Talgo VI trainsets. I do love a nice bit of symbolism tying the past and future together.
Our rating: Yeah, I pretty much adore this. Four-and-a-half stars.
Further information about CascadiaRail and its mission can be found on their website.
