Submission – New Salt Lake City Light Rail Strip Map, 2017

February 28, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps
Tags:

Submitted by Bailey, who says:

UTA (Salt Lake City) looks like they’ve been improving maps in the individual cars, as well. While the abysmal deservingly-zero-star maps are still in use at some stations, all cars have these fancy new maps over about half of the doors of the cars. This was taken in an SD-160 car. I like it, but I feel like it could do without the names of the cities on the map. What do you think?

Transit Maps says:

This is – by a considerable margin – quite the best rail diagram that the UTA has made during the five or so years that this blog has been active. It carries on the upward trend started by the current version of the full system map (June 2015, 3 stars) and pleasingly carries on the corporate look of that map, with consistent typography and legend box. The restrained north/south arrows are also quite nice: definitely an improvement over some of the previous ornate compass roses! Labelling is clear, legible and generally well-spaced… and no leader lines required!

There’s a couple of niggly little things that I’m not crazy about – the Green Line separates from the main spine using 45-degree angles, but the Red Line uses hard 90-degree turns, for example. It would seem that this is simply because there’s not enough horizontal space, but it makes things look a little inconsistent, especially on the West Valley and South Jordan branches, which are right alongside each other. The city names are a bit of a necessary evil, I’m afraid… everyone wants to be represented! They are a little cramped when jammed between the branches and the main trunk, but not so bad elsewhere.

Our rating: I almost can’t believe I’m saying this about a UTA transit diagram, but this is quite decent. Keep heading up, guys! Three-and-a-half stars!

Print Store News – Custom Print Sizes Now Available!

February 24, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps, Prints Available
Tags:

Now that I’ve acquired my own large format inkjet printer, I’m printing and fulfilling all orders from my print store myself. This means it’s much easier for me to produce many of my maps in larger, made-to-order sizes for those who want them.

All of my original maps are created in Adobe Illustrator, so they can scale up to any size as required. In addition, many of my restored vintage maps have excellent image resolution and can be reproduced at larger sizes and still look fantastic. For example, a recent client wanted all three of my vintage Chicago maps as large as they could be: two of them were 44″ wide (first and second images above), while the third (seen outputting from the printer in the last photo above) was an incredible 60.5″ wide by 44″ deep.

I have three paper widths in stock: 24″, 36″ and 44″, so it’s generally best if one of the dimensions of a print equals one of these lengths, but I can trim paper to any narrower width if desired. If you’re interested in a custom size on any of my prints, please drop me a line by using the this form, and I’ll see what I can do! Prices are extremely competitive compared to what you’d find at any “fine art” print shop.

Visit my store here to see all available prints!

Historical Map: Korean Air Lines route map, 1974

February 24, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps
Tags:

Via airlinemaps:

The Korean Air Lines route map from a 1 July 1974 timetable. This is a fun map – it takes diagrammatic elements and mixes them with curves to create a pleasant aesthetic. 

A key that includes the status of the Bangkok-Singapore route and what the destinations without routes indicate would be a good addition.

KAL operated 29 aircraft, including four 707s, three 727s, three 747s and four DC-8s, in July 1974, the Flight Fleets Analyzer shows.

We’ve featured a few transit diagram-style airline maps on the blog before, but this is one of the nicest looking that I’ve seen, even with the oddities noted above (Why show cities that no connections are offered to? Added geographical context? Reachable via partner airlines? It’s a mystery!).

There’s an almost calligraphic flow to the bold route lines which I find very pleasing, aided by generous curves at corners and the target-like circle around the network’s main hub at Seoul. Really quite lovely. 

Source: Bjorn Larsson, Airline Timetable Images

Could a Tweak to the DC Metro Map Fix Overcrowding?

February 22, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps
Tags:

Here’s a quick link to an article in the Washington Post by Martine Powers about a study that shows how tinkering with Washington, DC’s Metrorail map influences rider’s perceptions of the system and which path they should take to reach their final destination.

In the image above, for example, the Blue Line has been altered to look less desirable than the Yellow Line when coming into DC from the south… and in testing, there was a 9.5 percent increase in people choosing the Yellow Line over the Blue for their trips based on this map when compared to the official one. Even experienced local commuters were influenced by edits like this to the map, which is kind of astounding.

It’s a fascinating insight into human psychology – we know that this is not a literal geographical representation of the system (MAP NOT TO SCALE!), and yet we still use it to make judgment calls about distance and time. As the author of the study, Zhan Guo, says, 

“The conclusion is that people trust the map more than their experiences. Even for people who have used the system for many years, the map still matters.”

Go read the whole article by clicking below.

Source: The Washington Post

Submission – Future Official Map: Oklahoma City Streetcar, 2017

February 17, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Future Maps, Official Maps
Tags:

Submitted by Kara Fischer, who says:

I don’t know if you’ve seen this one yet, but here’s the page for the upcoming Oklahoma City Streetcar, featuring probably my favorite official streetcar map that I’ve ever seen. The color scheme is calm yet visible, the map doesn’t feel cluttered despite identifying every street and countless landmarks, walking times are included in relevant places, and the position of the station marker indicates the side of the road where the platform can be found. I personally think this is a perfect example of how a streetcar map should be designed, and I was wondering about your thoughts on the matter!

Transit Maps says:

Yes, this really is quite lovely, and any problems I have with it are very minor: The redundant second shield for I-235 that’s half cut-off on the right hand side of the map, and the way that the Bricktown Canal looks a little too similar to a road are the most obvious flaws for me. 

And while the color palette is generally very pleasing, I would have perhaps leveraged the distinctive magenta colors from the streetcar’s logo for the actual route lines, just to help them pop out a little more from the background.

Our rating: Really quite lovely, and hopefully an indicator of the quality of the streetcar project as a whole. It certainly gets me excited for the future! Four stars.

Source: Oklahoma City website

Submission – Future Fantasy Map: Vancouver’s Regional Transportation System by David Danos

February 16, 2017
comment 1
Filed Under:
Fantasy Maps, Future Maps
Tags:

Submitted by David, who says:

Here is a map I made using the current Translink maps as the base-line. I decided to include trams and commuter rail as trams are in the process of being deployed in Surrey and by Granville Island, and I firmly believe we should invest in commuter rail more than just the WCE. As well, I made a lot of references to Vancouver’s and Canada’s histories, from recognising our Coast Salish peoples on whose lands we illegally live to recognising other Indigenous talent to recognising a milestone in the trans community and a milestone for North American Deaf peoples.

Due to the clutter, I increased the size of certain, important transfer stations and made sure to note trains, airports and ferries. Unfortunately, I could not figure out a better way to place some text aside from over the tram lines. As well, I got lazy and decided to not add green to the North Shore by Capilano and Cypress (that will be my first update).

Transit Maps says:

This is definitely a fun project that David’s taken on here, and he’s done a good job of building on the ever-improving Translink corporate style to create it.

However, I will note that he’s using his allowable space incredibly inefficiently. By my rough calculations, the title and two legend blocks take up over 29 percent of the space contained within the blue border around the map. The wide open spaces around Langley, which contains just five stations, uses another 11 percent or so. This means that over 40 percent of the entire map is doing very little work, while everything else is crammed into the remaining 60 percent (or less, as there are some other large empty spaces).

Here’s what I’d do to to balance things a bit better. Reduce the size of the legends (and the type in them, which is too large) and combine them into one box that’s no deeper than the right-hand one on David’s map. This should free up enough space to enlarge and respace the cramped downtown area of the map. The outlying areas could also be compressed more to help with this, although I understand that David is trying to indicate how the commuter rail services reach far-flung parts of Greater Vancouver.

Routes on David’s map are only indicated by colour, and a few of them are quite similar, making it tricky to work out which is which sometimes. He’s using a frequency-based system where a thicker route line means more service, but this should be made explicit on the map. Skytrain = thick weight line; trams = medium weight line; commuter rail and other services = thin weight line. Indicating the termini that each line runs between in the legend could also be helpful when there’s this many different routes.

I’m also intrigued by the use of Squamish othographic notation to represent the First Nation names used for the commuter rail lines. Personally –as a non-local – this makes the names almost impossible to read or pronounce, and I’d much rather a transliteration of the names into standard English characters. I know that some local First Nation people prefer this notation to capture sounds in their language that aren’t normally present in spoken English, but I do think it would present a comprehension barrier to any tourists visiting Vancouver. I’m genuinely interested in what others think of this approach when it comes to information design for the widest audience possible.   

Unofficial Map: Map of all Urban Rail Transit Systems in Germany

February 13, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps
Tags:

Via peopleneedaplacetogo on Tumbr

Map of all local/urban rail transit systems in Germany (green S-Bahn, blue U-Bahn, red tram, yellow tram-train), by Wikipedia user Chumwa.

Neat to-scale graphic of urban rail (and trolleybus as well, shown in purple) in Germany, last updated in June 2016. The length and breadth of some of the S-Bahn networks is quite astounding – look at Leipzig’s! 

Click through to the map on the Wikimedia Commons for a better look.

Question: Do you know any official London Underground map that shows the Metropolitan Line/Railway stations beyond Aylesbury?

February 13, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps, Questions
Tags:

QDo you know any official London Underground map that shows the Metropolitan Line/stations beyond Aylesbury (i.e. the Brill and Verney Junction branches) and not just mentions them in a ‘To’ box?

ANo, I haven’t ever seen a map with “Underground” branding that shows the entire network and the Metropolitan Railway’s fullest extent out to the far reaches of Brill and Verney Junction, some 40-odd miles from London. 

The closest I can find is a Metropolitan Railway map (first image above) that was produced in slightly different versions from the mid-1920s up to 1933, after which all the railways merged to become the London Passenger Transport Board, the precursor to today’s Transport for London. This map shows the Metropolitan Railway’s routes in red and all the other “tube and district railways” in blue, so it does show the whole network, but not in a very equitable way!

The other map that I know of that includes Brill and Verney Junction is the famed “Metro-Land” map (second image), but it only shows Metropolitan Railway lines, and only as far east as Baker Street.

There’s no Harry Beck tube map that shows these branches, either: the 1932 proofing map only goes out as far as Rickmansworth, and any “To:” boxes he later added to the Metropolitan Line only ever went to Aylesbury. The Brill tramway closed in 1935, with Verney Junction’s branch following in 1936, so there wasn’t that much cross-over with the “Beck and beyond” design period.

Quick Project: Redesign of the Dallas Streetcar/DART Rail Strip Map

February 11, 2017
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
My Transit Maps, Unofficial Maps
Tags:

The other day, long-time correspondent Edward Russell tweeted a photo of a strip map he’d seen while on the Dallas Streetcar (left). It depicts the DART light rail system, telling riders that they can make a connection with that service at Union Station (at one end of the short streetcar line).

However, the execution of the map is almost comically poor: wobbly route lines, clashing labels, uneven spacing of stations and more. One of the longest routes on the map – the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) commuter rail to Fort Worth – is inexplicably scrunched up into the tiniest of spaces, making it look for all the world like it’s the streetcar line! While I acknowledge that fitting an entire rail system into a narrow strip map format can be challenging, I knew instantly that there had to be a better solution than this.

So here’s a quick two-hour reworking of the map to the same dimensions (as best as I can tell) and with type at the same size. The map now uses a very simple four-column grid, which allows all labels to be placed to the right of their corresponding route line: no clashing type here! The map is now also strictly diagrammatic. It’s impossible to even attempt to show geographical relationships in a distorted diagram like this, so why even try? All vertical elements are now placed the same distance apart from top to bottom, which nicely lines up all the stations into neat little rows. The one and only concession to geography was to place the TRE Medical/Market Center station along the horizontal part of its route in order to get it closer to the DART Orange/Green Line Market Center station, as they’re in close proximity in real life.

What else? I put on a DART logo, added a disclaimer that the map is not to scale (just in case!) and removed the redundant north pointer. I could probably work this up a little more, but I think I get this definitely gets the idea across. What do you think?

Submission – Asian Highway Network as a Subway Map by Xsanda

February 10, 2017
comments 2
Filed Under:
Fantasy Maps
Tags:

Submitted by Xsanda, who says:

Over the Christmas break I was inspired by your E-Road Network Map, and wanted to create my own map. I chose the Asian Highway Network, a similar system to the E-Road network, as there seemed to be very few maps of the whole network, and the only ones I could find were either too high-level or too vast to easily read. This is my take on the network.

However, one thing I was not sure how to represent on the map was international borders, which I think would be more important in Asia than Europe, as without Schengen any route-planning would have to involve considering visas for travelling between countries. There is also the problem that some borders are completely closed, such as the North Korea | South Korea border on AH1 and AH6: how would you suggest that I show this?

Another issue I had while developing the map was fitting 45° angles into the grid system. I rounded these distances to the nearest ¹⁄₈ of the line width, but this did mean that it became harder and harder to stick to the major divisions of the grid as I developed the map further, and any diagonal distances are slightly different to the horizontal/vertical distances. Do you have any advice about this?

Transit Maps says:

Wow – you’ve certainly nailed the look and feel of my E-Road map, Xsanda! As a result, this makes a great companion piece to my previous work. I find it especially interesting that the two systems overlap somewhat to the west: Turkey, Russia and the Caucasas region would seem to have many roads that would be designated as both an E-Road and an Asian Highway, though signage as both would probably be pretty intermittent. 

Also of interest is the numbering system: unlike E-Roads and US Interstates (which arrange numbers into a continent-spanning grid), the Asian Highway network uses numbers 1-9 to represent cross-continent routes, with two- and three-digit numbers grouped by region, as Xsanda explains:

Numbers 10-29 represent Southeast Asia, with 10-19 on the mainland, and 20-29 on the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines. Numbers 30-39 are located in Northeast Asia, and 40-59 are in South Asia, the Indian subcontinent. Numbers 60-69 are in Central Asia, 70-79 are in Iran and Afghanistan, and 80-89 are in Turkey and the Caucasus region.

Design-wise, international borders do present an interesting challenge, and I’m not afraid to admit that I intentionally left them off my map simply because it seemed like too much hard work. I also liked the idea of presenting a Europe unified by this network of highways, even though the Schengen Zone is much smaller than the total area of the map. You can take the plunge and add them, but be aware that the distortion of the landforms to fit the stylised look of the map will carry across to borders, which could result in some very odd-looking countries!

Regarding closed borders, they could be pretty easily indicated with an appropriate icon that’s explained in the legend – this could be a solid black bar or “X” across the highway at that point, or some other appropriate yet graphically simple symbol.

As for the grid, I wouldn’t worry too much about breaking it. On a map like this, it should really act as a guideline only: the more important thing is to make a map that feels balanced, and I think you’ve done a pretty good job! Now, what other continent-spanning highway networks need mapping?