Historical Map: Mexico Tramways Company – Lines and Properties in Mexico City, 1910

March 2, 2017
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A lovely old map showing Mexico City’s extensive tram network in 1910. Solid red lines are electric street-running trams, ticked red lines are electric trams on exclusive right-of-way, while green lines are humble mule-pulled trams… of which there are still quite a number. In fact, mule-pulled trams continued to be used in Mexico City up until the 1930s. Electric substations, mule stables, carbarns and other company properties are also highlighted on the map.

Streetcars hung on longer in Mexico City than many other North American cities, with the last line – by then running old PCC cars – only closing in 1984, and being replaced almost immediately by a modern light rail line.

More information on the history of streetcars in Mexico City over on Wikipedia.

Source: Library of Congress Maps Division

Submission – Official Map: Bus Network of Puy-de-Dôme, France, 2017

March 2, 2017
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Submitted by Pierre, who says:

I’d like to suggest this map that I immediately found particularly bad designed. It represents the bus network in a small French region, Puy-de-Dôme. Besides the fact the number of the lines are very hard to read, I find quite difficult to follow each line and the center looks totally messy.

Transit Maps says:

Pierre is right on the mark with his summary of this map… it’s really quite dreadful in so many ways. 

Poorly-drawn, low-contrast route lines all converge upon Clermont-Ferrand, with a minuscule route number embedded within each one. Lines on either side of Clermont’s “station box” use the same colour, making you think they’re a continuation of the same route – until you pull out your magnifying glass and see that they have different route numbers. Label placement is everywhere, and the narrow, bitmappy-looking typeface really doesn’t help.

By far the best thing on this map is the nifty isometric illustration of the bus, and I’m pretty certain that even this just a slightly modified stock library vector file. Slap the right livery on it and call it done!

Finally, one wonders what the town of Égliseneuve-d’Entraigues did to deserve being shown on the map, but to have absolutely no connections to it…

Our rating: Quite abysmal. Half-a-star – just because of the bus – but it’s still the latest addition to the Transit Maps Hall of Shame.

Submission – “Transit Flow” by Ray Luong

March 1, 2017
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A visual exploration of BART ridership throughout a typical workday. Watching the video below is fun, but the actual tool – made with HTML/CSS, JS, .d3.js, Sketch and BART ridership data – is even better. Click here to view it. 

After you’ve watched it through to about 2pm, some controls will appear down the bottom left to change the speed of the simulation, and also switch between “inbound” and “outbound” trains (which I think should be labeled more simply as “westbound” and “eastbound” as the path always follows a train’s trip from one end of the line to the other). Ray tells me that only showing one direction at a time was an intentional tradeoff, so as to not overwhelm the viewer on top of handling performance in the browser.

Ray’s also written a short piece on the background behind the project here, which is an interesting read.

Source: YouTube

Submission – New Denver RTD Rail System Strip Map, 2017

February 28, 2017
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Submitted by Dan Malouff, who says:

Denver has opened several new rail lines over the past year or so. Apparently, with the most recent one, they launched a new system map. Finally they’re using consistent angles! 

Transit Maps says:

So far, this new design only seems to be on in-car strip maps: RTD’s website still uses a version of the horrid old “wibbly lines” diagram. Small steps!

It’s certainly a vast improvement over what’s come before, although I can’t help but think that it’s been influenced by Theo Ditsek’s excellent unofficial redesign (June 2015, 4 stars). I definitely did a double-take when I first saw this, as the resemblance was immediately obvious to me without even having to go back and look at Theo’s diagram.

All that aside, though, and it’s interesting to note that despite the diagram’s improvement, it still really doesn’t fill the space available on the strip map terribly efficiently… lots of empty space all around. Still, at least they’re not distorting the darn thing to fit the space anymore!

Also of note is the minimal branding for the “University of Colorado A Line” – here reduced to a tiny label running alongside the route – and the continued conversion of the line letters from the old square shape to a more New York Subway-style circular bullet.

Our rating: Another much-improved map (like the UTA strip map from yesterday), even if it seems a little familiar. Three-and-a-half stars.

Source: SkyscraperPage Forums via Dan’s submission

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

February 28, 2017
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.