Unofficial Map: Paris Métro Map by Constantine Konovalov

June 7, 2016
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I first came across this project last November, and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. An obvious work-in-progress with a lot of half-finished ideas and only part of the map visible in the preview image made things very hard to judge properly. 

Fast forward six months and the finished product has been unveiled at last. It’s definitely been worth the wait, as I think this is a very polished, well-considered map. The central conceit – that Métro lines 2 and 6 should form a perfect circle around Paris – is not a new one, but this is a particularly well implemented interpretation of that idea. 

The use of 30-degree angles instead of the standard 45 allows more versatility, but care has also been taken to minimise the number of directional changes along routes. Indeed, Constantine reckons that there are half as many “bends on the line” on this map as there are on the official RATP Métro map. It is this straightening out of routes that helps prevent the central part of the map – that contained within the idealised circle – from looking like so much spaghetti in a bowl. A lot of work has gone into creating harmony and space between all the many and varied route lines, and I find the overall effect very pleasing. The path of the Seine orients the reader nicely, as does the inclusion of the Canal St. Martin and some delightful line icons of major landmarks throughout the city.

Mode differentiation is good, with Métro, RER, Transilien and tram services all looking quite obviously different to each other. Interchange station symbols have been greatly simplified from the earlier draft, which helps them stand out much better now. Destinations reachable via a short walk are indicated with dotted lines: a very welcome touch! Finally, future expansions are also included as dotted route outlines, showing just how much thought has gone into this map… I do love a map that’s future-proofed!

If I have one tiny complaint, it’s the way that the outer edges have been compressed and distorted to allow the inner part of the map to work properly. In real life, if you stand on the Arc de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde is in one direction, and the Grande Arche at La Défense is in the exact opposite direction. It’s one of Paris’ grand axes and almost as much a landmark in its own right as the buildings along it. The official map honours this axis, but Constantine’s map has to bend the path quite substantially to keep the even spacing of stations around the perfect 2/6 ring. It’s not a deal-breaker by any stretch, and I think that the change of background colour at the urban boundary almost acts as a signifier that the map is switching from simplified geography to pure diagram at that point.

I also think that the map could have relied a little less on the established look of the official map (despite the presence of their logo, this project is not endorsed or supported by the RATP). While the similar look creates an instant sense of familiarity, I do think that Constantine could have pushed the envelope a bit and created something with its own unique look and feel.

Our rating: The lure of making a perfect circle out of Métro lines 2 and 6 is almost too great to ignore, but there have been many failed and downright ugly attempts at it over the years. This is easily the best effort I’ve seen, if perhaps a little overly reliant on the design themes of the official map. Four stars!

Source: Metromap.fr – take a look at the incredible process video at the bottom of the page: you can almost see Constantine’s thought processes and ideas evolve along with the map. Well worth watching!

Official Map: A Line Opening Poster, Minneapolis by Kevin Cannon

June 2, 2016
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Via: kevincannonart:

Metro Transit asked me to create a map celebrating the new A Line. Posters will be available during the grand opening festivities on June 11.

Here’s a great poster by artist Kevin Cannon for the opening of Minneapolis’ curious new “BRT-lite” A Line bus service. While it will have 10 minute headways, branded buses (with WiFi, because god forbid we live two seconds of our life without fast Internet), and stops with nice station-like shelters and ticket machines for faster boarding, the buses will just run along the road in standard lanes shared with all other traffic. This means that most of the “rapidity” promised comes from faster dual-door boarding at stops (which are spaced further apart than standard bus stops), rather than any actual speed increases along the route (if there’s traffic, the bus is still stuck in it).

Still, the poster is quite lovely, full of landmarks, transit connections and happy people. And I do love the note that the obviously illustrated map is not to scale. Cheeky!

Submission – Official Future Map: RTA of Southeast Michigan Regional Master Transit Plan

June 1, 2016
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Submitted by Mike Moran, who says:

Southeast Michigan’s local/regional transit plan, an ambitious 20-year, $4.6B plan to provide actual transit options to the greater Detroit area. Heavy reliance on BRT, plus a new regional rail line. One thing to note is the Woodward streetcar (nearing completion) is barely a blip at this scale.

As a side note, I’m currently in Portland for a conference (my first time here) and I love the transit system! I am extremely jealous of the system, and it has made navigating the city extremely easy for some of the more scattered events (and to get to all of the breweries).

Transit Maps says:

All the breweries, Mike? I’ve lived here for over nine years and I’ve still got so many more to explore!

But onto the map! I saw this myself this morning and was going to post about it anyway, but Mike kindly filled in the details behind the plan so that I didn’t have to. Thanks, Mike!

I love this map – it’s clean, simple, easy to understand and – most importantly – aspirational: qualities that are needed to encourage the citizens of greater Detroit to embrace the underlying transit plan. Make no mistake, it will be an uphill battle to convince enough people in this very auto-centric part of the world to vote for the additional sales tax that will provide a majority of the funding for this plan, but a map like this helps a lot. Benefits of the proposed network are outlined at every opportunity, concepts like BRT and cross-county bus services are explained clearly and concisely. A lovely minimalistic yet bold colour palette gives dynamic punch to the map, with each mode clearly visually differentiated from the others.

If I have any quibbles with the map, they’re very minor: the hard acute angles of the teal bus lines as they come into the airport seem a little at odds with the rest of the map, and the Canadian coastline perhaps seems a little lazy and indistinct compared to the Michigan side.

Our rating: Everything comes together to form a coherent, cogent argument for the plan, best summed up by the phrase “rapid, reliable, regional”. Four-and-a-half stars!

See also: this fantasy commuter rail map for southeast Michigan (May 2012, 5 stars)

Source: RTA of Southeast Michigan website

Submission – Official Map: Las Colinas APT System, Irving, Texas

May 31, 2016
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Submitted by Louis Alvarez, who says:

I thought you might enjoy this recent artifact of one of the weirdest transit systems in the US: the four-station, two line people mover that serves the Las Colinas suburban development near Dallas. (For me, the most eccentric thing about the system is that despite what one might expect, the cars are manned by human drivers who come to pick you up on request.) The map is such a festival of poor design decisions that it’s almost beside the point to offer a critique, but I appreciate the fact that the management felt it would be worthwhile to print these up on glossy stock for potential visitors.

Transit Maps says:

I think you’re being a little hard on the cartography here, Louis: the map itself isn’t that bad, although the “aged paper” effect is somewhat heavy-handed and the use of drop shadows/glow effects is a little… enthusiastic. The APT routes themselves are clearly shown and labelled, as is the new-ish connection to the DART Orange Line, so the map is doing everything it needs to, really. 

The huge type obscuring the top part of the map and the odd cartouche enclosing the service information to the left are pretty awful, however. Also, those are the three best photos that could be found to depict the system? The bottom one looks like it dates from the 1980s and could have definitely benefitted from some colour correction work.

As Louis mentions, the system certainly is eccentric. Construction began in 1979, but the system – already seen by some as a white elephant – didn’t begin passenger service until 1989: a full decade later. Rising costs and lack of ridership closed the system completely in 1993. When it reopened in 1996, the service only served the local office building tenants and operated exclusively at lunch-time on weekdays: basically ferrying office workers to and from the restaurants near the Bell Tower station. As Louis says, a fault in the automatic driving system means that the cars are operated on-demand by human pilots, using what are meant to be backup manual controls on a permanent basis.

The opening of the connection to the DART Orange Line has seen a surge in ridership and a revival of the system’s fortunes – there’s even talk of expanding the APT by completing half-built guideways and adding fill-in stations. However, it’s still somewhat of an oddity: a small, over-engineered, half-completed relic of the late 1970s. Read more about the system here.

Our rating: The map itself does the job, although it’s overlaid with some pretty average graphic design work. Two stars. 

Reader Question: Have You Seen the Interview with the Designer of the London Underground Map?

May 27, 2016
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Question: Have you seen the interview Londonist did with the designer of the new London Underground map? Really fascinating!

Answer: I sure have! If anyone hasn’t seen it yet, then head over to the Londonist website and watch the interview here. 

Personally, I wish it was more in-depth and technical, but that’s because I’m a total and utter transit map-making nerd who loves that kind of stuff. The interview does make a couple of very interesting points, though…

First, the straight-up admission that the map is not as aesthetically pleasing as it once was. This is rightly attributed to the extra information that the map has to convey that the “classic” maps never had to deal with – fare zones, accessibility icons, Overground, DLR, and now Tramlink! – although I still feel that things could be handled a little better, even within the now-obvious limitations of the “Beck style”.

Secondly, the need to listen to and appease multiple stakeholders, all of whom have a say in the final map. This is something that us amateur transit map designers simply don’t have to deal with: we make something that we like and call it done. I took the fare zones off my own Tube Map redesign because I wanted to see what the modern map could look like without them, but it’s a mandated element for the official map and it’s the designer’s job to make that requirement look as practical and easy-to-use as possible.

Finally… would that be my dream job? Almost certainly, even with all the pressure of carrying on the legacy of the most famous transit map in the world.

Bus Map Client From Hell

May 27, 2016
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Via: clientsfromhell:

I designed a bus route map with specific routes highlighted in various colours.

Client: Hmm, how about we make the route with the pink line more wiggly?

Me: I guess, but it represents a route with fixed stops. The roads are fairly straight.

Client: The road is straight, sure, but I want the route to be more wiggly. Thanks.

I have no words. Isn’t the whole idea to make the route look as direct and convenient as possible?

Submission – Updated Official Map: St. Louis MetroLink Map, 2016

May 20, 2016
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Submitted by Bruce Englehardt, who says:

It’s been a while since your last review of the St. Louis MetroLink map (Dec. 2011, a generous 3 stars), and it has since been updated. Of note is the new Gateway Arch symbol and redundant labels. The labeling for stations seems more consistent overall and they’ve retained the parking labels (though now with colors that could be confused with connecting lines/services).

Transit Maps says:

Judging by the PDF’s metadata, this map is actually from 2014, so I’ve been a little slow in getting around to it! This is generally much better than the previous map, with the labelling being the biggest improvement. I also like the cream/beige background – it  makes the map a little less sterile – and the Gateway Arch information is very welcome. I don’t even mind the duplication of information: it’s aimed at tourists, who can sometimes need all the help they can get in an unfamiliar city.

The weird placement of the Metro logo – not really locking up to any other element – makes me think that the background has been extended to add the heading and make the map taller for this on-line PDF. I suspect that the strip maps on trains would be cropped where the Mississippi River cuts off at the top and bottom – can anyone confirm this for me?

My biggest gripe with the map are the coloured circles for parking. Like Bruce says, most systems use disks like this to indicate interchanges with other lines, so there’s the potential for confusion there. 

Secondly, it forces you to look at the legend to have any idea what the dots mean… the icons have no contextual clues at all. If I was doing this map, I’d use a universally-recognised “P” icon for parking, “P+” for extended parking, and a “$” or “P$” for paid parking. There is plenty of room on this map for slightly bigger – but still very simple – icons. 

Finally, if a map user has protanopia – a type of color-blindness – the icons for free long-term parking and paid parking look almost identical, which could be a bit of a problem. For this reason, I always make “shape-only” icons like these use different simple shapes – circle, square, triangle – in addition to colour to prevent any possible confusion.

Our rating: Much improved graphically, but those parking icons are really poor. Still three stars, because I was way too generous last time around.

Source: Official St. Louis Metro website

Updated Official Map: Los Angeles Metro Rail & Busway Map, May 2016

May 19, 2016
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The LA Metro Twitter account just shared this new map, ready just in time for the opening of the Expo Line’s extension to Santa Monica tomorrow. Overall, it’s a really nice map, continuing the strong, unified branding and design that Metro deploys across everything: maps, signage, vehicles, stations, their website and other communications material. However, there are a few points of interest worth talking about.

First, the map no longer shows Metrolink commuter rail lines, although it still indicates where a transfer may be made to that service. I think this is a pretty good compromise, although everyone will have different opinions on how integrated a regional transit map ought to be. The map also loses information about bicycle and car parking available at stations, which is odd… there’s plenty of room for this useful information. Or are we meant to look stuff like that up on the internet these days?

Then there’s the odd decision to show the course of the Los Angeles River on the map instead. The benefit of its inclusion seems negligible to me (is it really used as a navigational/geographical landmark by users of the transit network?) and it adds clutter to the map, especially in the already busy central section. When I first looked at the map, I actually thought it was representing a transit route: it’s a similar thickness as the actual route lines, and has a similar tonal value to some of the lighter lines.

Also strange: the way that the loop in the Blue Line in Long beach has flipped from the west side of the branch to the right, basically so that the labels for Pacific Av and Downtown Long Beach won’t clash with the Silver Line. While the order of stations visited is unaffected, the old way was demonstrably more geographically and relationally correct.

Some of the station spacing seems a little uneven to me, especially on the Red Line. In situations like this, I often concentrate on getting the labels spaced right, rather than the dots along the line… it just helps the eye scan the names a little easier. I’ve also seen comments that the neighbourhood names on the map should better align to the final destinations of the trains, which sounds eminently sensible to me.

Our rating: Carries on the strong LA Metro “house style” of design, but makes some curious decisions that affect the quality of information shown. Still, when the Regional Connector opens, everything will change again – so it’s really a placeholder map of sorts. Two-and-a-half stars.

Source: LA Metro/Twitter

Official Map – New TfL Elizabeth Line Overview Tube Map

May 18, 2016
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Thanks to Oliver O’Brien and CityMetric for finding this new Tube map that highlights the new Elizabeth Line (the line formerly known as “Crossrail”) route across London.

(Side note: I think I’ll call this line the “CrossLiz” from now on, as – let’s be honest – the Queen always looks a tiny bit cranky these days.)

First off, let’s examine the CrossLiz itself. Placing an entirely new line right through the centre of an already crowded map is no easy feat, but I feel like it could have been handled a little better. I know from my own comprehensive reworking of the Tube Map earlier this year that it’s entirely possible to maintain a straight trajectory for the line from Bond Street all the way past Whitechapel, so it’s a little disappointing to see the this map introduce a couple of extra kinks. If we can’t keep the Central Line dead straight anymore (one of Beck’s major compositional axes), let’s at least try to do it with the new flagship line!

The decision to show the western extent of the CrossLiz all the way out to Reading is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it plays hard and loose with geography – Reading is a looooong way west of London, and flipping the line down along the edge of the map to shoehorn it into the page constraints is taking things a little far, even for a diagrammatic map like this. Seriously, it makes the ride from Hayes & Harlington down to Heathrow (around 4.5 miles) look longer than the trip from there out to Reading (25 miles). Beck knew what to do with far-flung reaches of the network: put the station names into a box that points off the edge of the page and be done with things!

The inclusion of Reading also makes the map wider than it was previously, so the legend has had to be moved from a column off to the right of the map to the empty southwestern portion of the map. I’m actually in favour of this: it looks more integrated and fits the space very neatly.

There are other concerns with the depiction of the CrossLiz as well. Acton Main Line is in completely the wrong place – it should be south of the Central Line, between West Acton and North Acton, not way up there. The way that the line is shown as crossing under the Thames to cut across the Greenwich peninsula and back under the Thames again is just lazy: the tunnel stays entirely to the north of the river through this section. The Woolwich station should interact with the Woolwich Arsenal DLR station: they’re very close to each other and will almost certainly operate as an Out of Station Interchange (OSI) pair.

In addition to the CrossLiz, I’m also interested in what else this map – clearly marked as a DRAFT “based on January 2016 specifications” – can tell us about the future of the Tube Map. Although all the other lines are greyed out to place the emphasis on the new route, I can still see quite a few differences when compared to the current edition.

First: this map has no zones. And I don’t just mean that they’ve been deleted – the map has been extensively reworked to remove all trace of them. An obvious example of this is along the Piccadilly line out to Heathrow: all the station ticks are now evenly spaced out without the awkward gaps that were needed to make labels fit entirely within a shaded zone area. The southern part of the Northern line to Morden similarly benefits from this, with all station labels now on the same side of the route line. This is a lot of work to undertake just for a quick “look at our new line” map, so it makes me wonder… are zones on the official map on their way out?

The area around Paddington has been hugely reworked to accommodate the CrossLiz, but still gets the arrangement of platforms wrong. The Bakerloo is shown as interfacing directly with the Circle/Hammersmith & City lines, when it should be paired with the District/Circle lines at the Praed Street part of the complex. The other thing that this new configuration does is to place the Bakerloo’s Edgware Road station to the south of its Circle/H&C counterpart, which is just weird. Marylebone has to go along for the ride, so it’s in the wrong place, too.

Lots of errors from previous editions remain: South Kensington’s dumbbell sits too low on the District/Circle line; South Tottenham is in the wrong place relative to Seven Sisters, as is the Overground’s Bethnal Green when compared to its Central line counterpart; the ugly cramped curves for the District line into and out of Earl’s Court are still there… and a multitude of other little things too tedious to list here.

tl;dr: CrossLiz integration into map not great, zones strangely absent, Paddington still a complete mess despite extensive reworking, lots of annoying errors and misplaced stations.

Source: Easiest to find on the Crossrail project website