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

Historical Map: Proposed Los Angeles Metro Rail Project and Station Locations, 1983

May 18, 2016
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Taken from a Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD) Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), this map shows the then-preferred alignment for what would eventually become the LA Metro Red Line.

The FEIS called for an 18.6 mile alignment, all underground, with 18 stations. The cost in 1983 dollars was projected to be $2.47 billion (or around $5.88 billion in today’s money). An alternative called for an alignment with some aerial sections for $2.41 billion, while an “Minimum Operable Segment” of just 8.8 miles with 12 stations would have cost just $1.54 billion. 

In the end, the initial 1993 segment of the Red Line was only 4.4 miles long and had just five stations (one of which already existed as part of the Blue Line). Subsequently constructed sections of the Red Line past Westlake followed a different alignment to that envisioned here. Still: a start towards alternate transportation in the auto-dominated Los Angeles area!

Source: Google Books via Laura Nelson/Twitter.

Official Map: Bicycles on the London Underground

May 17, 2016
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One of the things I love about the London Underground is the seemingly endless cavalcade of official Tube maps: the normal map, large print, color-blind friendly, step-free access, geographical… and now this: where and when you’re allowed to bring your bike. 

Foldable bikes are allowed pretty much everywhere (but not during peak travel times, please!), but full-size bikes are much more limited in where they can go. In general, the allowed areas for such bikes corresponds to the subsurface lines – the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines – plus the DLR and some suburban (above ground) parts of the deep tube lines. These lines have much smaller carriages than the subsurface lines, which would limit their ability to take bicycles.

The map does show some oddities in the system: you can take your full-size bike one stop from Cockfosters to Oakwood on the Piccadilly line, but no further! And there’s a one station gap in the full-size bike network between Colindale and Hendon Central on the Northern line. So you can bring your bike on and off the platform at either station, but you can’t travel between them? That’s weird.

You’ll all be relieved to know that you’re welcome to bring your bike on the Emirates Air Line cable car at any time: they’re happy to see someone – anyone! – using the darn thing.

Source: TfL Bikes on Public Transport page

Submission – Timeline GIF of the Development of the Dallas DART System by Kevin McElroy

May 17, 2016
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Submitted by Kevin, who says:

I combined two cool developments I’ve seen in transit maps on the internet, the isometric map from Stuttgart (October 2011, 5 stars) and GIFs of the evolution of a system.

I lived in Dallas for school and again as a professional and while the network could be better, I always enjoyed riding the DART. And actually the system really lent itself to the map principles that seemed to work for so well for Stuttgart.

It is diagrammatic and might be difficult to show in this isometric format as the plans for a second alignment through downtown are finalized. But I look forward to the challenge, it will be great to get 5 minute headways on every line. It is currently a huge bottleneck to run every line through the same street-level trackage.

Transit Maps says:

This is pretty neat, Kevin! The isometric viewpoint looks good, although it may be a little disorienting at first and take a couple of loops of the GIF for people to work out how it relates to the real-world layout of the DART network.

One improvement I can think of is to make time run linearly in even increments, instead of “skipping ahead” to the next construction activity. If nothing changed between 2002 and 2009, I think that’s just as important to know as when the new sections were opened. As it stands, the GIF makes it look like there’s near-constant expansion from 1996 all the way to 2014… and that’s not really the case at all.

Submission – Official Map: Bus Routes of Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2016

May 16, 2016
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Submitted by Kristofer Kåring, who says:

The “City Lines Bus Map” of the Libertas network in Dubrovnik (Croatia) is not one of the best network maps i have ever seen. It is geographically correct, I have to give them that, but a line for each direction of a route makes it messy where a lot of routes share the same road. And the use of a white arrow in a black dot for stops makes it even messier.

A side note: It is also not possible to find the difference between routes 1A, 1B and 1C on the map. Reading the timetable for each route, I can see that 1A takes the stops Mokosica 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 2 while 1B takes Mokosica 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and that does not make it any clearer to me. 1C is an even bigger mystery, because its route is not described anywhere.

Transit Maps says:

Posting this one for my sister-in-law, who is on vacation in Dubrovnik at this very moment. Fortunately, she and her husband have rented a car to get around Croatia, because this map is certainly not helping matters. 

There’s really only eleven bus routes shown on the map, but it just looks like there’s so many more: a tangled web of lines that becomes almost impossible to follow at major intersections. The decision to show each direction of travel for all routes, even if they’re on the same physical street – disregarding decades of transit map wisdom that says that a route line always indicates bi-directional travel unless explicitly indicated otherwise – is just baffling, and almost doubles the amount of lines that need to be drawn. It also creates a proliferation of directional arrows/bus stops, which visually dominate the map.

Other problems abound. There’s a heavy-handed and overly dark drop shadow for the coastline, an unnecessary radial fill for the ocean, and an unexplained dashed line for Route 17 (Peak hour only? Weekends only? Summer only? Who knows!). The arrow for ferries leaving directly from the Old City points directly at the route numbers for regional buses heading south along the coast, which is bound to cause some confusion. Almost hilariously, the white squares used on the map to indicate hotels are shown in the legend as white… on a white background.

Our rating: Not good, not good at all. Hard to decipher and overly complex for such a small network. Half a star, and that’s only because I quite like the aerial photographic representation of the Old City.

Source: Libertas Dubrovnik official site

Submission – Unofficial Map: Amsterdam Tram Network, 2016 by Alain Lemaire

May 16, 2016
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Submitted by Alain, who says:

The latest iteration of my Amsterdam tram map. I’ve been working on this map almost continuously since its inception in 2004. I made the original map in MS Paint and switched to Adobe Illustrator in 2007. When I did, I also decided to upload the map to Wikipedia. It featured on almost all Wikipedia lemmas about the Amsterdam tram system until earlier this year, when someone decided to replace the map with another one. Out with the old, in with the new, I guess. That hasn’t stopped me from contributing new versions, though.

As the file history shows [at the bottom of this Wikimedia Commons page – Cam], the map has gone through various major and minor design changes over the last nine years. I switched the background color from light to dark to light again, made various changes to the line layout, experimented with different solutions to show in-system transfers and transfers between the tram and metro system, changed the design of the line overview, etc. The changes are too numerous to sum them all up. It’s what I like most about map designing: the broader strokes are usually being set early on in the design process, but it’s the almost endless range of possibilities of portraying a certain piece of information that allows for endless iterations.

Transit Maps says:

This is a good, solid diagrammatic map, Alain – definitely forged and refined through multiple iterations over the years. It’s certainly come a long way even since your initial Wikipedia version from 2007 (red text on a purple background: what were you thinking?).

That said, I think there’s still some room for further improvement, especially with the interchanges. The concept behind a bounding box indicating a major interchange is sound – and a refreshing change from Underground-style circles or dumbbells – but the box can be a bit hard to make out at stops with multiple lines passing through it. The stops west of Dam on the 12/13/14 lines illustrate what I’m talking about here. Perhaps bringing the boxes to the top of the stacking order would help them remain visible, or the size of the box could be adjusted to properly enclose all the relevant routes.

Transfers between tram lines and the Metro are also a little problematic: I feel that the “tick” used for Metro stations sits a little awkwardly within the bounding box. Maybe a black circle could work, or – as previous versions used – a circle with an “M” for Metro could be employed.

I’m also not entirely sold on the need to differentiate between the Metro and “sneltram” parts of the 51 Metro line: it seems to me to be an operational consideration that doesn’t really affect the users of the system. You get on the train at Centraal Station, you get off the same train at Amstelveen… the change of power supply from overhead to third rail at Station Zuid doesn’t affect the journey from a wayfinding perspective at all.

Finally, I think more care could be given to some of the labelling. Hyphenation should be used as an absolute last resort on a transit map and I see too much of it here. Line breaks should also be optimised to enhance readability of stop/station names. For example:

2e v.d. Helst-
straat

would read better as:

2e van der
Helststraat

and the awkwardly three-lined

Ceintuur-
baan/Van
Wousstraat

has plenty of space to be reconfigured into the much more readable:

Ceintuurbaan/
Van Woosstraat

Our rating: Overall, I do like this map: it’s clean, simple and generally easy to use. The shape of the routes themselves evoke Amsterdam’s famous canals, even without geographical clues. Some more finessing (what’s a little more after 12 years, Alain?) and this could be really lovely. 3 stars.

Submission – IKEA Store “Transit” Strip Map

May 15, 2016
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From an anonymous submitter, who says:

IKEA now produces these store maps – not exactly a transit map, but quite a lot like an in-car line map so I though it was worth suggesting. Sorry about the torn-off bits – I have a pet rabbit!

I’d say it certainly makes navigating an IKEA a bit easier and it does emphasise the one-way nature that you’re supposed to go round, but I can’t help thinking it might confuse people who don’t make the jump between a looping path in the store and a line on the map.

Transit Maps says:

I’ve certainly noticed this similarity before, so it’s good to have a good example of this type of map to feature on the site. 

Visiting an IKEA store is always a very linear experience – many people trek dutifully through the whole store, even if they’re only after one particular thing – so a strip map makes perfect sense to me. It’s the order of things that matters, not the exact layout. However, the inclusion of short-cuts is a godsend for those who want to skip ahead of the crowds!

Interestingly, this map is for the Wembley store in London, but my local IKEA in Portland, Oregon has the exact same progression of departments.

Historical Map: Metro de São Paulo Linha Norte-Sul, c. 1973

May 13, 2016
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Before it became Linha 1, the São Paulo Metro’s first line was simply called the North-South Line after its general alignment. Although the photographer on Flickr dates it to 1973 (the year before opening), the map actually seems to show the route built out to its 1978 extent, just before the opening of the Red Line 2 in 1979. 

The line extends as far north as Santana (opened 1975), and the 1978 fill-in station at Sé (now the busiest station in the network) is also shown. This may be because this is some sort of planning or projected future map: the eye-poppingly bright “Metro area of influence” zones seem to support this, looking much like walksheds on modern transit planning maps. The map also shows bus ans taxi interchanges, main railroad lines, highways and the very approximate locations of neighbourhoods near the alignment.

See also: The modern São Paulo Metro map (Jan 2012, 2.5 stars)

Source: Anderson Reis/Flickr – link no longer active (free Flickr account)

Official Map: KC Streetcar, Kansas City, Missouri, 2016

May 6, 2016
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America’s latest modern streetcar line opens today (May 6th, 2016) in Kansas City, Missouri, running approximately two miles north from Union Station to the River Market district. To go with the new system, there’s also this spiffy new map, which will be mounted at stops along the route, as seen in this great photo taken by Edward Russell.

Overall, I like it a lot: it’s clean and simple with just enough detail for users to orient themselves and has some nice icons for connecting services as well. I think that there’s a few too many directional arrows – you could probably halve the number and still get the idea across – and the slightly offset stops (meant to indicate that the stations are placed on either side of the named cross street?) are perhaps a little overly detailed for such a simple map.

The main point of interest for me is the typeface used – Halis Rounded Medium, by the look of it. It’s certainly modern and friendly, if slightly idiosyncratic. Its capital “M” looks uncannily like a “W” rotated 180 degrees, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, the kerning between some letter pairs is pretty awful – too tight in some places, yet very loose in others. Taking the word “Metro” as an example, there’s a huge amount of space between the “M” and “e”, and the “r” and “o”, but the “etr” in the middle is set very close. A little manual kerning here and there could have helped this look a lot better.

Our rating: Overall, this is very nice, and should be seen as a template for future  American streetcar maps. Let down slightly by some unfortunate typographical oversights. Three stars.

Source: RideKC Streetcar website