Submission – Official Map: Madrid Cercanías Diagram, 2022

April 21, 2022
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Submitted by Orange, who says:

I’ve been browsing the maps you have about my city, Madrid, and I noticed the map you have for the Renfe Cercanías network, the commuter rail in Madrid, is not up-to-date. The changes aren’t huge, but the network does operate under substantially different patterns. I would really appreciate it if you took some time to check out the most modern version of the diagram.

Transit Maps says:

It has been a while since we looked in on Madrid’s commuter rail diagram (see the previous review from June 2013 here), but I’m not really enamoured of this new version at all – for a few reasons, not all of which are design-related.

First things first – this diagram is sloppy and messily drawn. The gap between adjacent route lines is wildly variable (check out the C-1 and C-7 lines as they round the bend south of Principe Pio station), and the fussy jogs in the lines through Sol and Méndez Alvaro stations just look awful and amateurish. There are better approaches to depicting these stations than these half-baked attempts if just a little thought was to be applied.

I find the zone boundaries are even more busy and distracting than they were before, as the contrast between the alternating zones has been increased – they really do come across as zebra stripes now. There has to be a way to either radically simplify the shapes of the zones or forego them in favour of a zone designation label at each station, because this approach is now bordering on the absurd.

The thinner route lines and standardised station markers unfortunately make this diagram considerably more generic that the older map. While that map shares some of the same problems that this new one has, its unique design style compensated for those flaws quite a bit.

The non-design related problem with this diagram? The fact that this tiny 1200-pixel wide PNG of it is the only available version of it on Renfe’s website – no PDF or even a higher-resolution image. Much of the smaller detail is difficult to make out and I wish you luck trying to read the legend at all! Delivering passenger information like this in 2022 is completely unacceptable and really needs to be looked at – and not just by Renfe, as plenty of other transit agencies still use raster images that are too small or overly compressed on their websites.

Our final word: Urgh. A huge backwards step in this diagram’s evolution. Poorly drawn and delivered.

Source: Renfe website

Submission – Unofficial Map: A Radial Diagram of Taipei Rail Transit by Lucien Ong

March 28, 2022
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Submitted by Lucien, who says:

Beside being inspired by the various radial metro maps featured here over the years, the idea of doing a radial map for Taipei’s metro systems came from the then under construction Circular Line and the city’s overall geography. The Taiwanese capital is situated in a basin with rivers flowing in from the surrounding mountains, so it is conceivable to represent the area in a radial manner, even though the city center itself is very gridded, while the surrounding areas have a much more organic urban growth pattern.

I have worked on this map on and off over the past few years, the original sketch included only MRT lines and the conventional railroad TRA, the finished product added the LRT lines, HSR line, as well as some of the routes being planned, to show the routing of the completed Circular Line. Most lines are in operation, except K (2023), LB (2024) and LG (Phase 1 – 2026).

To accommodate central Taipei’s very gridded boulevards, I had to break the radial rule to have the Green, Red, and Blue lines run in parallel. All other lines more or less follow a polar grid that centers on Taipei Main Station.

Transit Maps says:

Another radial diagram to add to the mix, though I feel that this one is slightly less successful that the Cologne diagram I featured last month. Lucien even mentions the major problem – the dichotomy between the regularly gridded downtown, and the more organic, spoke-like nature of the outlying lines. As a result, he’s tried to accommodate both, which looks a little awkward. For example, the half-circle the Green Line makes around the central hub is nice, but the way that the Red Line is then forced to take a tiny step down to maintain that inner linear grid isn’t ideal.

I’m also not a huge fan of radial diagrams where the circular lines have to stair-step their way around the map in order to line up with interchange stations on the other lines. Here, the yellow Circular Line has to jump around all over the place to make connections, and the future extension to the LG Line has to make little “half-grid” jumps! It’s generally agreed that the less changes of direction a route line has to make, the easier it is to follow – so these convoluted route trajectories are less than ideal. Part of the problem is that the “Circle Line” is in no way actually circular in real life, but this depiction definitely isn’t the solution.

That said, the angled dead-straight trajectory of the main line and HSR routes is fantastic, and the diagram itself is very clean and well-designed. I definitely think it’s a great design exercise, even if it’s not totally practical. As I’ve said before, radial diagrams should only be used for cities which really work with the style, and I’m not sure Taipei quite fits the bill.

I also want to note Lucien’s original hand-drawn sketch for this diagram, which is great, and seems to have a little more fluidity to it, which I really like. The softened edges to the waterways are particularly nice and helps stop the diagram from looking so mechanical. I’d definitely like to see that aesthetic brought into any revised version of this diagram.

Hand-drawn sketch of Lucien Ong's Taipei Metro radial diagram.

New Official Map: A Radial Diagram for Rail Services in Cologne, 2022

February 28, 2022
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I’ve had quite a few requests for this one and I’ve been meaning to write about it for quite a while, so here goes! This one’s definitely worth presenting as a before/after comparison – the new 2022 diagram above compared to the previous 2021 below:

It’s no secret that I’ve been somewhat skeptical of radial diagrams in the past – seeing them as perhaps a little too flashy for their own good and often being applied to cities where the topology simply doesn’t suit such an arrangement – so it’s fantastic to see one that works really, really well. Cologne is a very radial city, with major roads radiating out from the central core and mainline trains from the south having to loop around much of the western half of the city to get to the Hauptbahnhof, so the choice of a radial diagram is very appropriate.

The new diagram also executed superbly, with a great sense of balance and clarity to it. It definitely seems less cluttered than the previous version, even though it shows the same information. Intelligent choices have been made where the lines can’t fit into the radial scheme and very little feels forced or out of place. The one bit that doesn’t quite ring true to me is the placement of the Messe/Deutz station, which in real life is a straight shot across the Hohenzollern Bridge from the Haupthahnhof. However, within the limitations imposed by the radial structure, it works well enough.

The decision to remove the blobby fare zone boundary and replace it with subtle dashed tarifgrenze markers along each line is inspired and immediately makes the new diagram feel lighter and more spacious without the drab grey background surrounding the central part of the diagram.

Also of note is that this diagram calls out stations that are not accessible with a struck-through wheelchair icon, reversing the normal method of denoting accessible stations with an icon (as seen on the 2021 map). This is something that’s a point of contention in transit map design, with some designers saying that it’s a bad design practice to use an icon that shows a lack of something. However, you can’t deny that it makes the map so much cleaner when there’s only a few stations that don’t provide barrier-free access like here!

Finally, it’s interesting to note that while the design agency is the same for both diagrams – Die Informationsdesigner, based in Cologne – the new map gives credit to Benedikt Schmitz, who designed an award-winning radial map of Cologne as part of his bachelor’s thesis at the Cologne International School of Design in 2018. His design definitely forms the backbone of the new official map, so it’s great to see his contribution be officially recognised.

Our final word: Probably the best radial transit diagram that I’ve seen so far. It shows that this design style can be used for a real-world application when the style suits the city that it’s being used for.

Hey everyone! The large-format inkjet printer that I use to make maps has broken down, and I’m buying a brand-new one to replace it. While I can cover the cost of replacement, any assistance – even just a few dollars – would still be a massive help. If you’ve ever purchased a map, or read and enjoyed the blog, please consider making a small donation!

Source: Die Informationsdesigner website

Unofficial Map: An Isometric Map of the Barcelona Metro by Frank Rodriguez

February 25, 2022
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Here’s something that really shouldn’t work as well as it does, and yet it’s quite wonderful. I think part of the reason is that the isometric viewpoint is reminiscent of Barcelona’s actual positioning on the coast (although the real-world angle is quite a bit steeper than 30 degrees), and almost comes across as an aerial view of the city. The simple division of the map into ocean (blue), city (white) and coastal mountain range (green) also works nicely. This – combined with the the named rivers at opposite ends of the city – give a good sense of scale to the diagram, even if it’s not that geographically accurate. The distinctive station markers, sort of “reversed out” of the route line, are also quite nicely done.

Things aren’t perfect, though – my usual pet peeves of uncapitalised labels and labels set in the same colour as their route line rear their ugly heads once again. The uncapitalised labels could be excused as being a part of the distinctive look of the diagram, but it still hurts readability, especially with such a stylised typeface. (Or maybe this is one of those typefaces that eschew capital letters altogether?) The dotted line showing a future extension to join the two disparate parts of line 9 needs to have larger dots placed closer together as it’s very difficult to follow across the map at present. You could also argue that the isometric presentation forces the majority of the network to be crammed into about a third of the canvas, with a lot of empty ocean and mountain on either side, but the diagram is still quite clear even with that restriction.

Our final word: An interesting take on Barcelona’s Metro, and one that manages to be more than the sum of its parts – even with a few quirks and imperfections.

Source: Twitter

An Update on Printing

February 23, 2022
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As you may know, the Epson Stylus Pro 9900 that I use to print maps for the Transit Maps store has broken down. And not in a little way: the belt that drives the print head has snapped, and the print head itself finally needs to be replaced. After getting some estimates on repairs, I’ve decided that it actually makes more sense to get an entirely new unit, rather than refurbishing a printer that’s already more than a decade old – there’s no guarantee that something else won’t break immediately after these repairs!

Financially, it’s an unexpected but necessary expense if I want to continue making and printing maps like I do now, but it’s definitely something I love doing. While I can cover the cost with a little juggling of finances and payment plans, any assistance that you could offer – even just a few dollars – would be a massive help. If you’ve ever purchased a print, or read and enjoyed the blog, please consider making a small donation to my printer fund by using the form below – enter any amount that you’d like to give. All money received this way will go directly towards purchasing a new printer, an Epson SureColor P9000, the direct descendant of my 9900.

Thank you for your consideration!

Cam
Transit Maps

Submission – Historical Map: Streetcars of Kingston, Ontario, 1910 by Noah Gaffran

January 13, 2022
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Submitted by Noah, who says:

Here’s my map of the streetcar services operated by the Kingston, Portsmouth & Cataraqui Electric Railway in 1910. I was inspired to do this after seeing several maps of historic tram networks including the ones on this website [See my historical maps of Portland, Spokane and Yakima – Cam].

The system opened on Princess St in 1893. By around 1898 it had reached its largest extent as shown in this map.

In 1910 the system was increasing service on most routes but the Williamsville shuttle eventually closed due to poor track quality and ridership.

Unfortunatley, the system was plagued with financial troubles. In 1905 after a dispute with the city, the system was taken over by a group of citizen owners who continued to operate it as a public service, but it would never again turn a profit. Countless financial difficulties and disputes with the city and the electric utilities filled the 1910s and 1920s, but the streetcars kept running. It even survived a carbarn fire in 1909.

Sadly, a second fire in 1930 proved to be the last straw. All but one passenger trams were burned as well as the carbarn itself, and it was decided to abandon the unprofitable lines once and for all.

The styling for the diagram itself was inspired a bit by the Montreal metro’s dark background, bright lines, and combination of sharp corners in the landscape and smooth bends on the lines themselves. I went for bright fluorescent colours to stand out against the dark background. The route names are as far as I know accurate but I added the numbers. Just for fun I also added the mainline connections of the time as well.

Transit Maps says:

Nice work, Noah! I always love it when someone takes the time to research and document old streetcar networks, preserving that knowledge for the future. I often find that information about them is very fragmented… a bit in this book, something on a wiki there, an old diagram from somewhere else, and so on… so compiling everything in one easy-to-read map is a great way to consolidate that knowledge.

Design-wise, I like the dark background contrasted with the bright route lines… very stylish! I wonder if there’s a better way to show the main line railroads, as the dashed lines look like under construction roads at first glance. A thinner solid line in a colour that’s not quite as bright as the streetcar lines (a purple/mauve maybe?) might work.

As this is very definitely a map and not a diagram, perhaps you need a scale bar and maybe even some sort of period-appropriate compass rose. Labelling the bodies of water would be good as well.

The main area that needs some love is typography. It looks like you’ve used Microsoft’s Calibri throughout, which is a fairly workmanlike, generic “Office” typeface – not really period appropriate or visually striking. If you have access to them, then an early 20th century gothic typeface like Franklin Gothic or News Gothic could be a better choice. Push yourself here, as good typography can really elevate a project like this.

Submission – Unofficial Future Map: Consolidated Rail Map of San Francisco by Griffin Ashburn

January 10, 2022
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Submitted by Griffin, who says:

Attached is a diagram/sort-of fantasy map I recently made showing all the various rail services and connections in San Francisco. I’ve never been a fan of how Muni shows service connections on their official map – BART is typically included, though never Caltrain, nor BART’s connection to the airport, which I think is a fairly important to have.

I also decided to include the F Market & Wharves street car line, which while not connected that seamlessly to the rest of the Muni “metro” system, still serves as an important line for commuters in the city. Also included is the upcoming central subway expansion on the T Third Street line, which brings the line north into downtown with new underground stops north of market street.

Finally, it’s worth noting that this map depicts Muni’s service patterns prior to all of the various COVID cuts, with all light rail lines continuing downtown under Market Street.

This was the map of any sort that I’ve made, done as a challenge to myself to see if I could even do such a thing. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out (or honestly more shocked I was even able to get it done).

Transit Maps says:

Welcome to the wonderful world of transit map making, Griffin!

This is a good, solid effort that builds upon the existing Muni style to include more unified transit information for travellers, which is pretty much always a good thing. Showing BART all the way down to San Francisco International Airport is a great idea, so well done there. It’d be nice to perhaps show the SamTrans “SFO” bus from the airport terminals to Milbrae (which are timed to connect with Caltrain services) just to provide a more complete picture of transit options at the airport, but that may be outside the scope of a rail diagram like this.

If there’s an area that does need work, it’s the labelling of stations. Even though the official Muni Metro map does it, I will never be in favour of labels that are the same colour as the line they serve – there simply isn’t enough contrast between yellow text and a white background to be easily readable, for example. The different colours used also make the map look disjointed and give visual preference to darker labels. All the labels represent a station, so they should all have the same importance in the diagram’s hierarchy. Pick one dark hue with sufficient contrast to the background – it doesn’t have to be black, as the London Underground map shows – and stick with it throughout.

Similarly, I just can’t endorse labels set all in lower-case. Just don’t. Proper capitalisation of place names aids readability, and looks so much better.

Also, work a bit on the placement of your labels relative to the stations they serve – be consistent with how far away they are and whether they sit above/below or alongside the station symbol. The label for the SF Zoo at the end of the L-Taraval line seems to be floating in empty space, for example.

Finally, this isn’t really a comment on this map but on the whole Market Street arrangement of services, with the F streetcars running on the surface, the Muni Metro cars on the first underground level and BART at the bottom – all requiring some kind of transfer between them. Is this level of detail – splitting all these services up into discrete “boarding areas” joined by a connecting transfer line – necessary on a map like this, or is the detail as shown here okay? It’s something to ponder…

Our last word: A very solid first effort (I’ve seen plenty of unified San Francisco rail maps that aren’t as good as this), though some love could be given to the labelling to make it even better.

Source: Griffin’s website

Historical Map: Baltimore United Railways & Electric Co., 1929

January 7, 2022
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A charming map of streetcar services – and a few of those newfangled gas buses! – in central Baltimore from 1929. Points of interest are clearly illustrated, and the map is surrounded by vignettes of life and architecture in this “historic, pleasant, thriving city”. A prominent cartouche proclaims that “STREET CARS and BUSES in Baltimore go wherever there is anything to see…” and little streetcars have been drawn running along major thoroughfares.

As a side note, the United Railways & Electric Co. as shown on this map declared bankruptcy in 1933, and was reorganized into the Baltimore Transit Co. in 1935. The last streetcar in Baltimore ran until 1963.

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection

Submission – Fantasy Map: Service Patterns on the GO Transit Lakeshore Line by Ze Han

January 5, 2022
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Submitted by Ze, who says:

As a little mapping exercise I made a fantasy-ish strip map today of what tiered service patterns on the GO Transit Lakeshore Line could hypothetically look like after the Regional Express Rail (RER) project is finished. Some of it is fairly reasonable/already proposed/under construction, such as the East Harbour or Park Lawn stations, Eglinton Crosstown, Ontario Line, etc.; while some parts of the map are a little more far in the future or are unproposed thus far, such as a GO service to Brantford, Cobourg, Uxbridge, etc.

I based the map design on West Japan Railway Company’s strip maps as I wanted to kind of demonstrate a parallel as to how Torontonians/people from the GTA can reimagine the GO Transit system; not just as a simple commuter rail system, but a more complex rapid transit or regional system with different service patterns, like in Japan. Unlike Japan, however, I also included some “limited express” services that I’d imagine GO could hypothetically operate as well, adopting the “limited express” model that Japan Railways employs for longer-distance rail.

Transit Maps says:

A rather lovely hypothetical diagram here, and one that definitely wears its influences proudly on its sleeve – the JR West lineage is immediately obvious, right down to the “some trains do not stop at this station” central black dot symbol and leader lines joining stations to connecting services information.

If there’s one thing I’d like to see as an improvement, it’d be a consistently-applied horizontal grid. At the moment, most of the routes on the opposite sides of Union Station don’t quite line up horizontally and it creates a bit of visual imbalance – something is “off”, even if the viewer doesn’t quite know what is causing it. I’ve demonstrated how using a grid and aligning horizontal elements to it across the entire width of the diagram could work below. Note how aligning routes to the grid allows the ST and LE branches to mirror each other exactly on their unified horizontal axis instead of the curve on the ST branch finishing further to the right as it does on Ze’s version.

Of course, the grid could then be used as a way to place the connecting services information consistently as well, and so on… forming an underlying basis for the whole diagram.

Our final word: An excellent application of a proven strip map design that I feel could be made even better by adherence to an underlying grid to give a little bit more structure to the diagram.

Submission – Historical Map Recreation: Southern Electric 1934 Carriage Map by Paul Cooper

January 3, 2022
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Submitted by Paul, who says:

Attached is my re-draw of the Southern Electric Map, dated 1934, showing the electrified services (using 3rd rail top-contact 750v DC) serving South London. These were displayed in frames inside carriages, normally printed on heavy-grade card.

The temptation to correct some of the ‘issues’ of the original (the station names appearing over lines, odd spacing of lettering that doesn’t appear to be consistent and some rather interesting angles for the station names) was real, but I went with originality…

I believe this was one of the last designs to show the geographical nature of the network, before the tube-inspired topological maps took hold.

Was a real labour of love to redraw – but it’s a lovely piece to have on display.

Transit Maps says:

I managed to track down an image of the original map that Paul has so lovingly recreated and it looks like he’s done a really fantastic job of it. Perhaps the background is a little overly dark and the blue a little too aqua – but if Paul’s aiming for an aged, yellowed paper look then it’s actually quite effective.

I definitely agree with Paul’s view on alterations to these old maps when digitally recreating them. Generally, I’ll only ever fix egregious spelling mistakes and leave the rest pretty much as it was on the original. I find that you can actually learn quite a bit about design trends and typography of different eras if you do – compare the relatively loose letter spacing of the 1950s to the extremely tight letter spacing of the 1970s, for example.

Well done, Paul – this looks great and you should be proud of your efforts to recreate it so faithfully.