Official Map: Bus Routes of Midland, Texas, 2016

March 28, 2016
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Brought to my attention by Twitter user Zmapper, here’s a first (and hopefully a last) for a public transit agency – an official map that’s been drawn in Microsoft Excel. Lest you think I’m joking, the downloadable PDF on the EzRider website is named “Copy of Midland Bus Routes sch 2.xlsx”. The visible cell gridlines behind the map are also a bit of dead giveaway.

I understand that smaller agencies are strapped for time, money and resources, but this is kind of ridiculous. Excel is a spreadsheet program with the most rudimentary of drawing tools. It’s for number-crunching, not for any kind of cartographic application. While I certainly admire the ingenuity shown in forcing Excel to produce something it clearly shouldn’t have to, the results unfortunately speak for themselves.

Even stranger, the agency’s other route map – for its services in nearby Odessa – is based on a quite competent street map of the city, so I can’t really fathom why it was ever decided to proceed with this odd little exercise.

Our rating: Bordering on the bizarre. Zero stars and an entry into the Hall of Shame.

Source: EzRider website

Submission – Historical Map: Proposed Baghdad Metro Map, c. 1981-1984

March 25, 2016
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Submitted by peopleneedaplacetogo, who says:

The Wikipedia article for “Baghdad Metro” includes this unsourced image of a proposed network map. The way the colours are used in different directions is quite unusual but I guess makes sense if each colour corresponds to a destination (e.g. if destination signs on the front of trains are coloured).

Transit Maps says:

Hooray for reverse image search, which eventually revealed that this absolutely beautiful diagram was drawn by Richard Dragun of the Design Research Unit while he was a consultant designer on the Baghdad Metro project from 1981 to 1984.

The route colour designations – each colour always points towards a destination at the end of one of the four branches, rather than representing bi-directional travel – are certainly unusual, but they work quite effectively for a simple network like this. It’s the beautiful rendition of the system that really sells the concept, though: the interplay between the directional arrows and the diamond-shaped station markers is lovely, and the filigree cross-over route lines on either side of the main interchange station at Khalani are also executed very deftly. Heck, the concept even makes the ubiquitous railway “arrow of indecision” logo look great!

Our rating: A wonderful concept, beautifully drawn – a map that totally visually represents the place it was designed for, even if the system never came to fruition. Five stars!

Fantasy Maps: Zootopia Transit Authority Maps

March 24, 2016
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I’ve had quite a few requests for a review of the first map above, which is concept art for the movie Zootopia by art director, Matthias Lechner. The map does appear briefly at one point of the movie as well.

Leaving aside the logistical nightmare that would occur from having so many loop lines in a transit system, this is a fun little map. As one might expect from a Disney film, it comes across almost like a transit system for a theme park, with separate themed zones or regions, with distinct and definite boundaries between them. Tundratown (which I’m guessing is cold, having not seen the film yet) gives way instantly to the tropical Rainforest District and so on. The names of the stations are also themed – Frosty Road, Drift Street, Avalanche Avenue, etc. in the aforementioned Tundratown – which is either cute or twee, depending on your outlook.

Designwise, the map is pretty simple. The background colours are perhaps a little heavy, the geography seems overly detailed, and the labelling of stations is a little haphazard: lots of angles and names cutting across route lines. The ZTA logo is a little uninspired as well, but this is a neat concept.

It is interesting to compare this concept map to one that appears on a large format cinema standee (second picture above, photo taken by me). This represents a strip map in a subway car, and has a definite – and almost certainly intentional – New York vibe to it. The routes seem to be quite different to those in the concept map: a lot of the route and station names are the same, but they’ve all been moved around a lot, with almost all the stations seemingly located on one central trunk line. Strangely, all the lines are now called loops, but none of them actually seem to form an actual loop! I do like the icons for the trains to the left: each one has ears that correspond to the type of animal referenced – mouse ears for the Little Rodentia Loop, for example.

Source: Matthias Lechner’s Zootopia concept art page (right at the bottom, but look at everything – it’s all gorgeous!) 

Project: New York Subway Map in the Style of the London Tube Diagram

March 22, 2016
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A little while ago, someone asked me whether I had ever seen a map of the New York subway system in the style of the London Underground diagram. Rather surprisingly, I hadn’t actually come across one, so I decided to draw one up myself. Having just completed my own reworking of the Tube Map, I was already acquainted with its design rules and requirements, so this project didn’t actually take that long.

All of the subway trunk lines have been adapted to use their closest matching colour from the Tube Map: the BMT Broadway uses the Circle line’s yellow, the IND 6th Avenue uses the Overground’s orange, and so on. The IRT Flushing line’s purple gets substantially darker to use the Metropolitan line’s maroon, as does the IND 8th Avenue’s blue with the Piccadilly’s dark navy. I used the Waterloo & City line’s sea green for New York’s three shuttle lines, as the W&C is the only shuttle-like line on the Underground, and it looked much nicer than using the Northern line’s heavy black. One notable thing is how terrible the IRT 7th Avenue (red) and IRT Lexington Avenue (green) lines are for colour-blind users when they run adjacent to each other.

The other thing to note is that – in true Tube Map style – service patterns generally aren’t shown. This, of course, makes this map next to useless for actually navigating the subway – there’s literally no distinction made on the map between the J and the Z, for example – but that’s the way things roll in London! I did make one tiny concession to New York’s complexity by adding route designation bullets at the terminus stations of each service, but you’re completely on your own after that. Express services, turnbacks, skipping stations at certain times: these are all trifling details that London does not even attempt to convey – so neither does this map.

The other departure from the true Tube Map style was the requirement to adhere to Manhattan’s street grid as closely as possible, rather than evenly spacing the stations out along a line. As can be seen above, this mostly works pretty well, although occasionally the density of labelling required a street to be pushed slightly out of alignment.

Once the map reaches the outer boroughs, a more diagrammatic and evenly-spaced approach could be used successfully. The section of the map into Coney Island works particularly well, I think.

The complex routing of lines near Atlantic Avenue/Barclays Center actually turned out pretty well. The Tube Map “dumbbell” interchange symbol is particularly ill-suited to the needs of the 4 Av–9 St station complex. Here, even an offset symbol fails to clearly show that the (orange) D service does not stop along the southbound Fourth Avenue line. The single red tick across the green route line at the Brooklyn Museum stop is also less than satisfactory, but space limitations demanded that approach.

In real life, the R and M run underneath Broadway, so it was nice to be able to line the routes up with the N and Q Broadway station tick. Little touches like this are immensely satisfying when putting a complex map like this together.

Overall, this was definitely a fun little project. Applying the design language of one transit map rigorously to another system is always interesting, even though the results here are decidedly mixed. The map certainly looks attractive, but the Tube Map’s style is ill-suited to the intricate working complexities of the New York subway system.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

See a revised version of this project from 2019 here. Prints for sale!

Photo: Maps in Repurposed Transit Shelter, Portland, Oregon

March 16, 2016
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This small cafe on Fifth Avenue in Portland is housed in one of the last remaining bus shelters from the pre-2007 transit mall, and (awesomely) still retains the maps and informational signage of that vintage. 

To the left is the transit mall directory, featuring the last iteration of Portland’s icon-based route grouping – a beaver for routes to the southeast, a leaf for southern routes, a rose for southwest routes, and a deer for those to the west. Note that the icons have been made subsidiary to the directional lettering: they originally stood alone with no letters at all, and were phased out at the same time as the mall was redeveloped. 

The directory also notes where to go to catch the MAX light rail. Interestingly, it lists the (then new) Yellow Line, but the Transit Mall Stops map to the right doesn’t show it at all. This map cross-references the route groupings from the left with bus stop locations along the mall, so you know where to go to catch your bus. This system has been replaced with a far more prosaic A, B, C, D for southbound routes and W, X, Y, Z for northbound stops these days (map).

If you look really closely, you can also see a 2007-era MAX light rail map reflected underneath the cafe’s logo in the middle.

It’s nice to see a bit of transit history preserved like this, and I know a lot of people miss these bus shelters – they were enclosed on three sides and certainly gave a lot more protection from the elements than the current glass awning-only shelters.

Source: Photo taken by me this morning.

Map of Washington DC Metrorail Service, Wednesday March 16, 2016

March 15, 2016
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Yes, it’s a cheap shot, but I just couldn’t resist.

For those who haven’t heard, the Washington DC Metrorail will shut down entirely tomorrow for emergency inspection on its wiring after a previous fire. On a weekday, with less than a day’s advance warning.

Submission  – Sydney Tram Network at its Maximum Extent by VoomMaps

March 15, 2016
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Submitted by the map’s creator, who says:

After having tried for a long time to find a schematic route map for Sydney’s historical tram network without any success, I decided that the only option was to make one myself. This was a particularly tricky task as all of the maps I could find online showed only the tram tracks, but not how the routes functioned. After many hours going through many different websites, trying to figure out the different streets the tram tracks were on and drawing up the map, I have come up with the attached map.

Transit Maps says:

I’ve previously featured VoomMaps’ map of the maximum extent of railways in New South Wales (May 2015, 3.5 stars), and here’s another map in the same vein. Basically, it’s a “what if?” map, showing how Sydney’s tram network might look if every tram line that ever existed was still in place. (There are two exceptions: the two old spur lines to the Milsons Point and McMahons Point ferries have been superceded by the direct routes over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.)

It’s important to note that the route numbers are the author’s own invention, grouping trams by destination. Sydney trams never had route numbers: destinations were shown by name, sometimes supplemented by a coloured “flag” on the blind.

The map is nicely executed, and it’s very interesting to see how many of the southern suburb lines are separated from the main system, acting as feeder lines to the suburban railways instead. The Northern Beaches trams were also always separate, with The Spit proving an impassable location – ferry service linked the trams on either side until the Manly trams closed in 1938.

I like the way that the routes all collapse into combined trunk lines in the CBD, which definitely helps to simplify things. The list of city terminuses to the top left is also very helpful.

A couple of minor things: Cronulla is shown as being an awfully long way from the coast (the tram station at Shelly Park was just steps away from the beach), and I personally find the crinkly harbour shoreline a little too detailed for my liking – I think it could be simplified just a little more to better match the schematic look of the map. Is it practicable to add start and end dates (where known) for lines? That would certainly add an extra layer of historical information to the map.

Still, overall this map is superbly researched and beautifully drawn. Four stars.

Unofficial Map: Greater Tokyo Railway Network by “Kzaral”

March 14, 2016
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Whoa. An incredibly detailed “Underground-style” map of rail in the Greater Tokyo area – it seems to show everything from ropeways, aerial cables and streetcars all the way up to Shinkansen – by Flickr user Kzaral. 

Transliterating the station names to English means that the diagram simply can’t be as compact as other maps where Japanese characters are used, but there’s still a good sense of rhythm and balance to the map. All labelling is horizontal, with very few labels cutting into or going across route lines – quite the achievement! The colour palette is strangely drab with lots of tan/yellow/orange and pink/purple – are they all based off official line colours?

But enough from me: go take a look at the whole thing nice and big. Enjoy!

Source: Flickr/Kzaral

Submission  – Unofficial Future Map: South East Queensland and Brisbane Rapid Transit (2031) by Alex Jago

March 14, 2016
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Via: alexjago51:

Here’s another unofficial public transport map I’ve just finished.
This one is a bit more forward looking. The year is traditional, being from a previous State Government’s glossy-brochure plan – in which everything on this map would be built by 2031.

On the map is everything I could feasibly fit (rail, busway), plus a couple of things I probably shouldn’t have (ferries and every single light rail stop).

Rail and busway are a fairly established pattern now; although there are certainly some trickier bits around Park Road. Meanwhile at Roma St, with the 4×4 line crossover, I decided it was best to just put a big circle on and call it a day.

For the non-Brisbane people, I should note that the lines on this map are drawn from the perspective of 2031. In particular: we are yet to dig the tunnel from Yeerongpilly in the south, to near Bowen Hills in the north via George St.

The close observer will note that when a line passes over another in the diagram it also does so in real life. Hence, south of Park Road, the Cleveland and Kuraby lines (on the surface) pass over the busway, which in turn passes over the three lines in the yet-to-be-built tunnel. Similarly, the Ferny Grove line takes a flyover to get out of Bowen Hills.

A perhaps controversial choice is to show the tunnelled lines as passing under the river – if I didn’t show the ferries I probably wouldn’t have done this.

A couple of the line pairings (Ferny Grove to Cleveland and Doomben to Kuraby in particular) were chosen to avoid gaps or step-downs in the line ‘bundles’ in the diagram. However, almost all line pairings are entirely plausible. (The main exception is Gympie North to Coolangatta, that’s just ridiculously long and hence is not described as a pairing. Operationally, trains would start and  terminate on the far side of the city, and run interleaved through the centre). The groups of pairings are pretty much guaranteed to happen.

The ferries were a lucky consequence of transit map’s traditional inner-city distortion. It’s a pity I couldn’t get Norman Park closer to the train station of the same name (as at Milton) but it’s actually quite appropriate: Milton is an inner-city precinct with the train and ferry at opposite edges, about 600m apart; Norman Park station is 1200m away from the ferry and has only suburbia in between.

Fitting in the entire Gold Coast Light Rail was a bit of a challenge. I ended up using a partial inset, joining at the southern end. Hopefully it’s all clear enough.

Meanwhile, the Sunshine Coast is relegated to two insets, if it ever grows in relative importance this may no longer be acceptable. By then, trying to do this specific type of map may just be silly – better to produce three regional maps (which could also show all frequent buses), plus a heavy-rail-only overview.

I’ve chosen to show fare zones in the usual SEQ-system map fashion: a number adjacent to every station name. With 23 concentric zones, this is the more appropriate choice in my view.

The disability icons are of my own creation. I’ve chosen to invert the normal approach and show accessible as default, hence the little red crosses. The ‘accessible with assistance’ icons are the same purple as the official map’s icons – but the official map is a wheelchair being pushed, which is very fine detail and hard to see. My icons are distinguishable even when the station names aren’t!

The ‘future station’ x-marks-the-spot icons and hollow line theming I learnt from fellow mapper Brent Palmer – a great guy, even if he does periodically remove all trace of his work from the net. 

This was made in Inkscape, which is pretty good these days. I only wish it had better ‘draw a tangent circle’ and ‘auto-fillet’ capability like any worthwhile CAD program. Suffice to say I’m really experienced at manual Bezier approximations of circle-arcs.

Transit Maps says:

An interesting piece here by Alex. In the outer parts, the map is great: nice and clear, intelligent usage of insets to show the far-flung reaches of the system (I particularly like the partial inset for the Gold Coast light rail), and lovely “future lines” indication.

However, the middle part of the map is unfortunately a bit of a mess. Some of the problem is the network’s topology, but I feel like there has to be a clearer way to draw this map without having so many of the route lines obscured by labels and other type. Labelling is such a integral part of a transit map, but I feel it can be forgotten sometimes in the excitement of placing lines. The detail image above illustrates what i’m talking about, with the label for Boggo Road sitting right across the main trunk line, while even a hyphenated Woolloongabba still can’t sit clear of its lines. I also can’t fathom why Buranda’s label has to cut into its line at all.

Basically, I feel that the centre of the map needs to be expanded even more, especially the complicated section around South Brisbane, in order to better accommodate the labelling of the map. This could also help out with the representation of the river ferries – while I like their inclusion, they feel a little cramped and tacked-on to me at the moment.

Overall, I think Alex is headed in the right direction here. He’s taken the official map’s style and improved upon it nicely, especially in the outer areas. A little more thought and care in how the central part can be simplified and clarified will take this from “good” to “excellent”.

Video: Depot Discoveries – The Beck Map

March 11, 2016
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Here’s a little video primer about H.C. Beck’s famous Tube map, put together by the London Transport Museum’s Acton Depot. It’s a breezy little introduction to the most famous and influential transit diagram in the world, but it unfortunately repeats and perpetuates a couple of misconceptions about the map and Beck himself. (I’d expect a little better from the London Transport Museum!)

At first, I even thought the initial statement that Beck was “out of work” when he devised the map was false, but some further research revealed that he had been let go from his temporary position as an engineering draftsman at the Underground Group when he drew his initial working sketch in 1931. He was reemployed in a similar position in 1932, so was fully working for the Underground when the map was actually published in January 1933. His position, however, remained a temporary one until 1937. 

It should be noted that all of Beck’s work on the map was done on a freelance basis outside of his normal duties, and he was paid separate contracting fees for such work. He was under the impression that in return for assigning copyright for the map to the Underground Group, he was assured of being the only person who could make edits to the map. Alas, he never got this in writing, which led to an acrimonious split in 1960 when the Hutchinson map was released without Beck’s knowledge.

The assertion in the video that Beck was employed as the Underground’s “chief cartographer” upon his return is utter nonsense. He was only ever a lowly draftsman (doing the map work in his own time on the side), and actually left London Transport in 1947 to take on a teaching position at the London School of Printing and the Graphic Arts. Here he taught classes in typographical design, colour theory, the history of type design, lettering and drawing. He continued his work on the Tube Map on a freelance basis.

In a memoir, Bryce Beaumont (later the Publicity Director at London Transport) describes Beck’s duties in 1936 thusly:

Beck’s job in those days was the adaption of Press Advertising layouts… and overseeing the correspondence to newspapers and periodicals for the booking and filling of advertising space. 

Ken Garland describes Beck’s work at London Transport as holding “no great prospect of advancement, congenial though it was.”

Finally, the often-repeated “fact” that Beck based his work off electrical diagrams. There is absolutely no conclusive proof that this is true: Beck himself never mentioned an electrical diagram as inspiration, instead focussing on his desire to simplify and clarify the network. It’s just as likely that he was influenced by the seminal diagrammatic map work of George Dow for the LNER. The misconception seems to have taken root because of this joke diagram that Beck drew in 1933 after his co-workers teased him about the perceived similarities between his work and an electrical diagram.