Submitted by Steve Collins. This lovely hand-painted Tube map is just a small part of an impressive installation at the designjunction exhibition in London. Artist Camilla Barnard, in conjunction with TfL, has built an entire Tube Station replica out of wood, including ticket machines and barriers, a newspaper stand and both eastbound and westbound stations. Fun!
Source: Creative Review – link no longer active.
Taking transit map wall art to the next level is this piece by Ian Reynolds, an electrical engineer and computer science student at MIT. Not only does it light up and look cool, but it actually queries the MBTA API to show the real-time position of trains on the system. Very awesome.
As Ian himself describes it over on Reddit, “The MBTA is a big part of life in Boston, and I built this as sort of a love letter to the transit system that we all know and love (to hate).”
Ian’s also written a longer article on Medium describing the process behind the map’s creation, which also has a short video of the finished piece. Hilariously, while I was watching the video, I was trying to work out which map Ian had used as his starting point. Was it the current official map? No. How about the old official map? Not that either. Hmmmmm… what could it be?
Turns out he’d based it off my map of the MBTA and I didn’t even recognise it. Talk about embarrassing…
Source: Ian’s Medium site via Reddit/r/boston
Spotted by Theo Ditsek, here’s a lovely circular representation of the planned “Grand Paris Express” Line 15, which will eventually circumnavigate greater Paris. I believe the first phase (shown above as the bolder arc of the circle) is meant to be operational by 2022, although it’s reportedly already two years behind schedule.
The map itself was part of an exhibition about the project that was held in Vitry-sur-Seine, seen at the bottom right of the map. It featured renderings and models of the stations planned for the first phase (mostly designed by different architects for each station, artwork inspired by the project and more. Here’s an article in Liberation about the exhibition, complete with a nice big picture of the French President, Francois Hollande, standing next to this very map. It’s in French, but Google Translate does a decent enough job.
The map itself is definitely more conceptual than accurate, but it’s also wonderfully stylish. Connections to other rail lines – Metro, RER, Transilien and tram – are shown at each station, and connecting routes that run from Line 15 to and through the centre of Paris are shown as sweeping arcs, reinforcing how the new circle line will interface with the rest of the (already extensive) transportation network. About the only minor letdown is the treatment of the rivers. The idea is good – a stylised ribbon running through the map – but the execution looks a little stiff compared to the fluidity of the arcs used in the rest of the map.
Our rating: It’s all about connections! It’s a simple concept, but very deftly realised. 4 stars.
Submitted by ruddlesrocket, who says:
What do you think of this? I think it’s probably the worst map that TfL produce, having neither the benefits of geographically accurate maps (it’s difficult to know what streets the buses run along), and diagrammatic maps, in that it’s almost impossible to trace the route taken by one bus.
Transit Maps says:
I totally agree with this assessment! I’ll never understand why some night service maps completely eschew the principles of good network map design. You know what I mean: black backgrounds, one colour used for all the route lines… that kind of stuff. Instead of showing routes from end to end, like a proper map would, this one makes every route the same “night-time blue” and overlays every service along common route lines. There’s not even any differentiation between 24-hour standard routes and night-only services.
As a result, I have absolutely no idea where any of the buses go. The “shield hunting” – a term that dates back to old road maps, where you’d have to search for the next highway shield on the map to follow your desired path – that is required to read this map is some of the worst I have ever seen, and I’ve basically given up trying to work things out. There are sometimes up to 17 buses travelling along the same section of road, which then split into multiple directions at the next intersection – this is repeated again and again in a seemingly maze-like manner. It certainly doesn’t help that the roads that the buses travel along aren’t named, although Tube station labels can help add a little bit of context here.
People who use late night buses may be unfamiliar with the options available in the wee small hours, drunk, or both. This map certainly isn’t going to help them get anywhere.
Our rating: Even the owl looks frustrated and cranky. Almost unbelievably poor, especially when compared to the high standard of bus spider maps that TfL produces for its regular services. Seems to have been produced almost as an afterthought. 0.5 stars.
Source: TfL Buses web page (no longer listed)
Submitted by long time contributor, Kara Fischer, who asks:
Clever idea? Or useless eye-candy?
Transit Maps says:
Definitely just eye-candy, and really only made because of the terrible ‘El’ements pun in the title. It’s certainly not useful in any meaningful way and doesn’t bear anything but a superficial resemblance to the actual periodic table of elements.
Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, by the way, is one of the most information-dense infographics ever, with both the rows and columns revealing important information about the elements in addition to the information contained within each cell. A new row (or period – hence the name of the table) is started when a new electron shell has its first electron. Columns (groups) are determined by the electron configuration of the atom; elements with the same number of electrons in a particular subshell fall into the same columns. It’s so good that it was used to predict the properties of elements before they were discovered or synthesised.
This, on the other hand, is a glorified list of stations arranged in a grid and coloured to make it look just enough like a periodic table. As the “elemental symbols” are always just the first letter of each station’s name, there’s a slew of repeated letters everywhere – unlike a periodic table where each symbol is an unique identifier for each element.
Our rating: Not a map, not a meaningful table of information – just a visual to support a pretty terrible gag. It is nicely put together, though: just not my cup of tea.
Source: TransitTees.com
While I may be undecided about certain elements of the new official Portland Streetcar map, I do quite like this simple little diagram that can be found on their website. With a minimum of fuss, it shows the two new loop lines, the two bridges they cross over the Willamette River on and the four distinct neighbourhoods that they link together. Okay, so the NS Line looks a little vestigial, but let’s let the loop lines have the spotlight for a while!
Source: Portland Streetcar website – link no longer active
Amidst all the hoopla surrounding the opening of the new MAX light rail Orange Line, it’s easy to forget that Portland’s streetcar is now also running over the new Tilikum Crossing bridge. They’ve taken this opportunity to rework their system map to bring it more in line with their new branding – check out the rather nice new logo at the top left of the map, which doesn’t look half bad on the streetcars themselves.
I say “rework”, because a comparison with the previous map shows that the underlying basemap is almost identical, although it’s been given pastel neighbourhood colours on the new version. The typography has also been updated to use Halis Rounded, in-keeping with the new brand. It’s a nice, slightly softened sans serif that gives off a vague Neutraface or Verlag vibe without being quite as idiosyncratic as either of those better-known typefaces.
The really interesting thing about this map is the decision to split the newly completed Eastside loop into two separate route lines, the clockwise magenta “A Loop” and the counter-clockwise teal “B Loop”. I guess that this makes some sort of operational sense – and it would be nice for tourists to get that immediate sense that they’re on the right streetcar to go to OMSI, for example – but it works a little strangely in the section between PSU and South Waterfront.
In this section, all three of the streetcar routes come together. But while the route lines for the A and B Loops each indicate travel in a single direction, the lime green route line for the NS Line – which is the same thickness – indicates bi-directional travel. What this means is that this part of the map no longer really works to give a quick visual idea of service frequency. If there were two route lines that were both indicative of bi-directional travel, and you knew that they individually ran at 20-minute intervals, you could then surmise that there was a 10-minute headway when the two route lines ran next to each other. Now, it’s a little trickier, as there’s three route lines of equal thickness, but one of them means something different to the other two. In the end, this only affects a small part of the map and perhaps this oddity is offset by the benefits of clarity that separating the two loop routes out offers. I’d be interested to hear others’ thoughts on this: good or bad?
Our rating: Visually, an improvement on the previous iteration regardless of the route designations. Three stars.
Submitted by Piotr Ingling, who says:
Not exactly a transit map but seeing your post with NY subway stations drawings recalled me this one. It’s a photo that I took in Dec 2004 – unfortunately it seems that the board has been removed long time ago during renovation works. I hope it is preserved somewhere.
There are two levels here for metro and trams (underground part of tram network is called pre-metro as it’s ready to be converted to a proper metro in the future). On both levels tram and metro go in opposite directions and can (dis)embark from both sides of carriages.
Transit Maps says:
What a great photo, Piotr! Even though you took the picture in 2004, I’d hazard a guess that the diagram actually dates from around 1993, when the pre-metro platforms were added to the station – the fact that the architectural and engineering firms are listed to the right would seem to support this theory. Then again, maybe it’s even from 1988 when the original Metro station opened!
Source: Piotr Ingling/Flickr
Here’s a map that’s been doing the rounds over the last few days, and has now been sent my way by many, many readers (Thanks to all of you!). Compared to the familiar standard Tube map, It’s a more geographically accurate map of rail services in and around London (as of late 2014), and opinions on it seem to be quite divided. Some people think it’s more useful than the normal Tube map, some think it beautiful, while others think it’s a horrendous tangle of spaghetti.
It’s kind of all those things at once for me: it’s very cool to see how all these routes actually look in real life (spaghetti certainly springs to mind!), and the map is very well drawn with a nicely subdued supporting colour palette underneath the bright hues of all the rail lines. It’s especially interesting to see how the lines relate to the built-up urban areas, as shown in beige on the map. The map also makes far more sense of the tangle of Northern Line tracks between Euston and Camden Town than the Tube Map ever has – Mornington Crescent is finally in the right place! However, the curve of the westernmost branch of the Northern Line as it heads north is greatly exaggerated for clarity. The map is more geographically accurate, but not totally so!
However, if I just wanted to catch the Tube from Point A to Point B, I’d still greatly prefer the diagrammatic simplicity of the real Tube Map. The very fact that this map needs an enlarged inset for central London shows the main weakness of a geographical map like this for transit wayfinding. There’s simply too many stations in the middle of the map for them to be shown clearly and effectively. I’d argue that this map is even less useful than its nearest direct analogue, the New York subway map, as the area covered is just so vast. On the NY map, you can see how each stop relates to its immediate neighbourhood, but that’s much more difficult with this map’s scale.
Our rating: This map is fantastic for detailed examination, but for quickly navigating the network, give me a diagram every time! Looks great though, and I’ve definitely pored over its details for quite a while. Three-and-a-half stars.
I’m really liking these fantastic axonometric projections of New York Subway station complexes by architect Candy Chan.
This type of view isn’t anything revolutionary or new – see this fabulous diagram of London’s Piccadilly Circus tube station from 1929, for example – but these are all executed very deftly. The cleverly exaggerated vertical scale does a good job of preventing upper platforms and mezzanine levels from obscuring important detail below them, while the street level is indicated only by thin dashed lines and street names.
More station diagrams can be seen on Candy’s project website, and there are posters for sale as well!
(And yes, I adore the fact that the Columbus Circle diagram is contained within a circle.)
Source: projectsubwaynyc.com website, via CityLab (a good read!)
