Project: 1989 East Berlin Bahnhofsübersicht Map Digital Recreation

April 30, 2017
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I’ve long admired this fascinating map of the railway network in and around East Berlin, produced at the tail end of the Cold War in 1989. However, the only copy of it I’d ever seen was a horribly oversaturated scan that I reviewed over on Transit Maps back in 2012. So I was absolutely overjoyed when I was pointed towards this far superior scan (left), which is both higher resolution and much more colour accurate: for a start, you can actually tell the difference between the dark green S-Bahn and light green regional lines!

Despite the better quality, the scan was still unsuitable for Photoshop-based restoration and reproduction, so I decided – as I often do – to recreate it completely in Adobe Illustrator. Along the way, I discovered many interesting things. For starters, the map was almost certainly printed with five spot colours: dark green, light green, blue, black and light grey. Unfortunately, this does lead to some serious registration problems on the original map (mainly due to the cheap, flimsy paper the map is printed on), but at least the colours are bright and distinct.

Next, the typography is an interesting mix of the expected – Helvetica for subheadings and Univers Bold for all the station labels – and the more esoteric. I had a very difficult time matching the font used for the larger light grey text: no common historically-accurate sans serif typefaces seemed to combine its distinctive lower-case “k” and interesting top-heavy “ß” glyph. Almost by chance, I came across a reference to a typeface called Maxima, designed by Gert Wunderlich for the East German type foundry Typoart in the 1960s. I tested it out and it was an almost exact match: mystery solved!

Interestingly, the train icon used on the map to signify an interchange with mainline rail services is absolutely identical to the one digitised in Erik Spiekermann’s FF Transit Pict, which certainly saved me some time because I didn’t have to redraw the darn thing! This really isn’t that surprising, as FF Transit was originally designed as a custom typeface for Berlin’s transit network after reunification.

From a technical viewpoint, the map is quite well drawn, though I did have to apply some corrections to account for the terrible ink registration. Some of the labels along the north-east branch to Werneuchen seem to be misplaced in relation to their station dots, but I’ve left them as they were on the original map, because I’m making a recreation, not designing a new version of the map.

Comments welcome! Prints of this map are available in the Transit Maps store – click here!

Submission – Official Map: WEGO Bus Map, Niagara Falls, Canada

April 26, 2017
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Submitted by Lucas, who says:

This is the official map of Canadian Niagara Falls’s WEGO Bus service. I personally like the way the falls are depicted and the river’s sharp 90 degree turn in the lower right hand corner of the map, which I think serves as a nice visual hook. I don’t really like the way the Orange Line is treated, as it is unclear where exactly it runs and terminates once it merges with the Green Line.

Transit Maps says:

Yes, the illustrative approach to the falls themselves is quite lovely, as is the subtle “water” texture in the river below the falls. The actual routes on the map are a different story, however – especially in the central part where the three WEGO routes interact with each other. That area is quite cramped and crowded, which means that there’s not really enough room for all the labels, which need all sorts of angles and leader lines to squeeze in. 

The problem is exacerbated by the silly need to label some stations multiple times – once for each colour! (If you ever want to know why I advocate against labels in the same colour as their line, this is one of the main reasons.) Queen Victoria Park is the worst offender with three separate labels, two of which are set in condensed type and one that is not. However, just a little bit north, the Clifton Hill/Hornblower Niagara Cruises stop only gets one label (in blue), probably because the designer started crying at the thought of having to triplicate that long name.

Another problem is that when labels cross route lines, they get a white keyline to separate them from the same-coloured background, which make them stand out in comparison to other labels. If the labels were good old black instead of coloured, maybe this keyline wouldn’t be needed, or one that was the background green could be used for a subtler effect.

As for the Orange Line, I think the main problem is that the main map and the inset tell different stories, which makes things ambiguous – this is never a good outcome on a transit map!

Our rating: Some nice decorative touches, but a bit of a mess as an actual map. It’s usable, but it certainly makes everything more complex and messy than it really needs to be. Two-and-a-half stars.

Source: WEGO website

Question: Have you ever seen a ski resort map in the style of a transit map?

April 18, 2017
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Q Have you ever seen a ski resort map in the style of a transit map? I was thinking about attempting it, not sure if it is even feasible.

A I thought it was pretty much compulsory for every ski resort in the world to have a James Niehues panoramic painting for their resort map, so it’s no surprise that I haven’t actually come across a transit map-styled one yet.

The closest I’ve seen are these maps by Frozen Underground, but they just link ski resorts together using arbitrary “routes” and the well-worn iconography of the Tube Map, so that’s not quite what you’re after.

If it’s something you want to attempt, then go ahead and be the first – though I personally wonder about the usefulness of it. The big advantage of the painted panorama style that dominates this particular market is that it allows riders to visualise how the trails and the mountain interact with each other. Wide open slopes versus narrow cat track through dense trees; gentle bunny hill versus double-black diamond dropping down into a sheer bowl… the painted map makes this instantly understandable. It gives instant scale and dimension to the mountain, which any stylised diagram is going to find difficult.

Has anyone out there seen a diagrammatic ski resort map? I’d love to see it if you have!

Update: And of course – almost instantly – Craig Williams tells me that Kenneth Field made one for Breckenridge, Colorado back in 2009. 

A Look at Amtrak Under the Proposed Federal Budget

April 15, 2017
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A federal budget outline from the Trump Administration looks to slash funding for rail transportation, including a complete elimination of federal funds for long-distance Amtrak routes like the Empire Builder, Southwest Chief and California Zephyr. 

The map above, adapted from my Amtrak as Subway Map project, shows what the “national” passenger rail network could look like under this proposal: isolated, separate rail services, with no cross-country connections and over 220 stations without Amtrak rail service. Chicago, once a thriving national rail hub, now only directly serves its immediate region and loses connections to New York, Boston, Washington DC, New Orleans, California, Seattle and Portland.

As well as this defunding of Amtrak, the budget proposal would cut almost $500 million from the TIGER grant program, and $2.3 BILLION from the successful New Starts funding program, often used by cities to kick-start new transit projects.

Read more in this National Association of Railroad Passengers press release, and make your voice heard if you oppose massive transit infrastructure cuts like this that affect so many people across America.

Submission – Fantasy Map: Vitória, Brazil (yes, another one!) by Vinicius

April 14, 2017
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Hey Cameron. It was so interesting to stumble upon a fantasy map of Vitória, Brazil on Transit Maps. The story was very touching to me — just like Frederico, I also moved away from Vitória, and also made a fantasy map of its transit network as a way to connect back to a city I still care so much.

My project was supposed to be more artistic than accurate in any way. I finished it last January, and my ultimate goal was just to have a map that my close friends could hang in their walls :).

As a San Francisco resident, BART was my main inspiration for the way the map is composed. Vitória is an island, so its geographic aspects felt as important as it does to the Bay Area.

It’s very interesting to compare my end result to Frederico’s approach. While I didn’t use any of the proposed BRT lines as a reference, there’s a lot of similarities. Also, we both revived the extinguished waterways that Vitória had with its neighbor cities by keeping the old stations.

One particular aspect that I think is worth mentioning, is how I’ve included in the diagram a line that covers the island surroundings. Thinking about the social and political aspects of such line, it would probably be the hardest part to put out of this fantasy map, as it directly connects very poor neighborhoods like Andorinhas to rich parts of the city like Praia do Canto.

Transit Maps says:

Until Frederico submitted his fantasy map last week, I had barely even heard of Vitória, so to have two fantasy maps of it submitted in such short time is kind of awesome… and both created by ex-pats as a reminder of home. How wonderful!

Vinicius’ map is very colourful and stylish, helped along by a bright palette and what looks very much like the Toronto Subway’s Art Deco-styled corporate typeface. It’s rather lovely, and looks great set in all caps, something I’m not always in favour of.

The balance between stylised route lines and geographical grounding is deftly handled: there’s a real sense of place to this map, and Vitória’s island nature is illustrated nicely.

A few minor points: the way the purple “V” line integrates with the other lines at Andorinhas is a little awkward: there should be a simpler solution than this. 

The station dots at Jardim Limoeiro are the only set that aren’t at a standard angle: this wouldn’t be a problem in itself as they’re just following the curve of the lines around the corner. However, it’s unfortunate that the dots are so close to the dashed grey line below it, as this really highlights the non-standard angle.

Finally, the southern end of the apple green “L” line seems to extend too far past the terminus station in comparison to other line ends.

All in all, a very attractive and stylish fantasy map. Great work!

Historical Cutaway View: Proposed State Street Subway, Chicago, c.1940

April 13, 2017
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Here’s a fantastic (if slightly idealised) view of the then still-under-construction State Street Subway from a c.1940 postcard. This view looks northward along State Street from Adams, and shows the Monroe-Adams mezzanine. Note the direct access from the mezzanine level to the basement level of businesses on either side of State Street – now long since closed.

Text on the reverse side of the postcard reads:

Cut-away view of Chicago’s subway in the Central Business District. Shown are the main tubes; the downtown center platform, which is 3500 feet long; the two-way escalators to the mezzanines with store connections; and the State St. surface level. Features of the subway are ventilation, illumination, escalators, safety, comfort.

Source: CERA Chicago website – link no longer active

Submission – Fantasy Map: Harrisburg Area Rapid Transit by James Gibbons

April 13, 2017
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Submitted by James, who says:

This is a dream/concept I have for light rail transit in the Harrisburg, PA region. For a rather small metro area, there is pretty bad traffic, and oddly spaced suburban development of varying densities. I believe light rail transit in the region would spur more responsible developments and relieve traffic on both back roads and expressways, while encouraging walking. The system focuses on connecting suburban communities with the central core and other high density job or leisure destinations.

Transit Maps says:

This is a rather nice little map that James has made here, depicting a realistically-sized light rail system for the city it might serve. The downtown loops remind me a lot of Denver’s light rail, or even Portland’s back when the Yellow Line ran along Morrison and Yamhill, looping back around at 10th Avenue.

James has taken a fairly diagrammatic approach, using 30-degree multiples, which gives a nice, dynamic feeling to the map. The angled routes help him place his labels quite efficiently, though this can make the labels on the horizontal routes look a little tightly packed in comparison. In general, I do think that some work could be done to even out the spacing between labels: they’re quite bunched in some sections, but there are some large, uneven gaps as well. The northern leg of the Green line stands out most in that regard for me, going loose-gap-tight-loose once it diverges from the Purple line.

With diagrams like this, I really like to see if I can create a visual “hook” out of the arrangement of lines: a compositional axis or design feature that helps hold the whole thing together as a unified piece. On James’ map, I keep looking at the way the Green and Purple lines almost come together as a “wine bottle” shape to the top right of the map. If that shape could be made a little more visually attractive – by making the shape more symmetrical and having the two lines join to each other at the same place, for example – then it could be this diagram’s hook. Sometimes, further investigation of shapes, patterns, grids and axes are required to find the most harmonious arrangement of elements.

James’ HART logo is a really sweet concept, though I think it could use some tweaking to make that “love heart” shape a little more even and symmetrical.

Overall, definitely a very solid effort that’s worthy of some further exploration and refinement.

See also: a future DC Metrorail map by James (November 2015).

Historical Map: Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. Trackage Map, 1910

April 13, 2017
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What appears at first glance to be a street map of Philadelphia in the early 20th century is actually not what it seems. All this map depicts is streetcar track and mainline railroads (in traditional ticked lines), showing how incredibly dense the streetcar network was at the time, especially downtown. Interestingly, a lot of the system appears to be single-track only.

Nowadays, only a few vestigial trolley lines recall the days when streetcars reigned supreme in Philly.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Submission – Future Map: Auckland Congestion Free Network Map v2.0

April 11, 2017
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Submitted by Greater Auckland, who says:

I’d like to submit our new future Auckland regional transit map for a good brutally honest frisking! We follow your blog and you’ll see more than a few design cues have been picked up from your work.

This was done by Greater Auckland (formerly TransportBlog) to promote the revised Congestion Free Network Plan.

This network plan takes the best parts of the official Auckland multi-decade plan – the rapid transit of course! – and shows the system Auckland could have within 10 or 15 years… if the most of the public transport project funding was brought forward and the motorways and highways pushed back. About 30% of this is already existing, 60% planned by the city (eventually), and 10% invented by Greater Auckland.

The map is based on the ‘official’ planning map from the government (see page 23 of this document (PDF) but has been thoroughly improved to make it look like a real life map on a metro station wall.

It is designed as a A2 poster so some of the detail is quite small. In our recent fundraising drive we sold over a hundred copies at $100 a piece, so if you have any major comments let us know asap before we go to print!

The launch post with links is here. The map PDF can be found here, and the report that goes with it here.

Transit Maps says:

First off, the report that supports this map is rather wonderful, and a great read for those who are interested in such things. Auckland’s transit is already undergoing quite a transformation, and documents like this help continue that conversation into the future.

The map itself is quite lovely, I must say. The diagrammatic lines have been integrated with the geographical coastline quite expertly, although this does necessarily mean that the central portion of the map is a little cramped in comparison with the outer reaches. It’s only really a problem on the section of the green Western line between Baldwin Avenue and Mount Eden, which really does feel like things have been jammed in where they fit.

In general, I’m not the biggest advocate of colour-matching station labels with their respective lines: I always think it makes the map look more disjointed, and makes some lines look visually stronger than others just by virtue of having the darkest colour. It’s almost always the biggest problem with routes that are yellow, as the labels are much lighter than all the others. In a map like this, I’d prefer all the similar labels to be one colour. The attractive dark blue/grey used for interchange stations would work nicely for the rail/BRT stations, while an ever-so-slightly darker blue would make the ferry labels a little more visible against the background. At the moment, the labels are a little too tonally similar to the blue water fill for my liking.

After that, I’d just take a look at some of the label placement. Some are a little close to the route lines: Balmoral sits higher than Epsom, for example, and Orakei clips its route line as it goes around the curve. Shift it a tiny bit to the right and this won’t happen… that kind of little fix makes all the difference in the end.

Our rating: Overall, this is great work – clean, modern and inviting – that provides an inspiring look at the future of rapid transit in Auckland. Three stars!

Submission – Fantasy Map: Vitória Transit Network, Brazil by Frederico

April 10, 2017
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Submitted by Frederico, who says:

This is a diagram for a fantasy network serving my hometown, Vitória, Brazil – my first try designing a transit map.

If you showed this to a local, they would laugh at you – that’s because the city doesn’t have any type of rapid transit (not even bus lanes), even though it has almost 2 million habitants. The local government has been promising a BRT system more or less following the blue, orange and purple lines routes on this map for years, but it never went beyond a project. For most locals, a subway line is really impossible to imagine becoming real in a lifetime. So I thought I could bring this kind of utopia to the diagram and tried to give it a tongue-in-cheek feel using modular elements and childish colors.

This project also has a funny story behind it. I started concepting it 2 years ago, right after I returned from a trip to Lisbon, Portugal. I was in the middle of a depression, and on this trip I got to know some internet friends I have had since 2006 and really fell in love with the city and its “big city but suburban heart” sense. As you can imagine, my depression got even worse when I went back home, and when you are so dissatisfied about your life you can’t help but imagining a reality that is different in every aspect.

That’s when the idea of this map came through. One of the aspects of my life I thought that could be different was my commute: going to and back from work by bus, I imagined how my trip would be if my city had a subway, and even thinking of the voice of the Lisbon Metro announcing the names of the stations that a Vitória subway would have.

One of my other inspirations was the Los Angeles Metro identity. Their new designation system helped me identify the problems of color-based line naming and inspired me to create a system with different shapes for each type of service (bus, subway, ferry etc) and a different icon for each line, without using letters for designation which I find kind of boring.

I first started drawing a draft of the network on Paint (!), then switched to Illustrator and drew on top of a (terrible) map of the city I found on the city hall’s website. My main inspiration was, of course, Lisbon – I wasn’t really inspired to create anything at the time so I just tried to apply Lisbon’s metro map elements to mine. Most of them are still present here, such as the typeface, iconography and subway lines and its stations dots.

As I improved my designing abilities, I started changing the map to my taste, and eventually it became a diagram. I think I still suck on Illustrator, though, and if you edit the pdf you can see that it has many patches and shapes with wrong points that I didn’t know how to fix and ended up just putting a square on top to hide it. That was also one of the reasons why I chose to use this modular and squarey design: I didn’t have the patience to draw rounded curves on the angles! 

Looking back on the last two years, much changed: me and my friend who I met in Lisbon started dating long-distance, and eventually I moved here to live with him. So, maybe I also tried to put in this diagram the thing that really summarize my last two years: the feeling of being divided between two cities and trying to combine them two. I know… it’s a stupid thing to try to project into a transit map 🙂

Well, I hope you enjoy it, and sorry for the very long text. And thank you for this blog, it really has been a great inspiration for me.

Transit Maps says:

Sometimes, the story behind a map is perhaps even more interesting than the map itself. On the face of it, Frederico’s fantasy map is a pretty standard reworking of the design themes of the well-known Lisbon Metro diagram (which I wrote about way, way back in November 2011), with a few elements of the LA Metro map added to distinguish between modes. 

(Interestingly, Frederico has got his hands on a copy of the Lisbon Metro’s bespoke typeface, Metrolis, which certainly helps complete the illusion.)

However, it’s the meaning behind this work that makes it special, a juxtaposition of two places and the memories of each. It’s a very personal piece and that far outweighs the way the map might look.