Fantasy Map: 2014 Tour de France as a London Tube Map by Joe McNamara

July 7, 2014
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Don’t get me wrong: I’ve got nothing against the “… as a subway/tube map” design trope. Having created more than a few of this type of map myself, I’d be a pretty sad hypocrite if I said otherwise.

However, it does bug me when a map in this style fails to live up to the fundamental underlying design principles of the piece that inspired it, and that’s what’s happened here. Obviously drawing inspiration from H.C. Beck’s famous Tube Diagram (the oversized LU roundel really driving the point home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer), this map was created to commemorate the first few stages of this year’s Tour de France being held in England. It’s a fun idea, and not without merit as a concept, but there’s far more to making a tube map than just putting some coloured route lines down on a page and calling it done.

Beck himself, ever in search of more simplification and rectilinearity in his Diagram, would simply not have approved of the twisty, torturous paths that these stage routes take. In his hands, Epernay to Nancy would have been represented by a simple straight segment (instead of needing three angle changes): Bourg-en-Bresse to Saint-Etienne by a clean diagonal line. Yes, there’s a desire to indicate the relative lengths of each stage here (making this a map/diagram hybrid of sorts), but there has to be a simpler, cleaner, more Beck-like way to do it.

In my opinion, if you’re going to make such a big deal about the source of your homage, then a better adherence to the design principles espoused by that source can only make for a better end product. And I’m not talking about making a map that’s slavishly identical in every detail to the source: I have no problem with the substitution of what looks like Gotham for Johnston Sans, or the non-rounded corners where the routes change direction: that’s just window dressing on top of what really makes the Tube Map what it is – Beck’s never-ending quest for design clarity.

Source: via Gizmodo

Photo: Bus Map? Or Periodic Table?

July 6, 2014
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Not really as bad as all that, but an amusing comparison nonetheless. There’s probably a good reason for the crossed out duplicate route numbers, but I sure as heck don’t know what it is.

Source: anna pickard/Flickr

Submission – Unofficial Map: Park and Ride Commuter Bus, Northern New Mexico by Isaac Fischer

July 6, 2014
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Isaac submitted this in two parts, which I’ve combined into one post here. 

Of the first image, Isaac says:

This is the map that New Mexico Park and Ride provides in their system timetable; it’s probably the worst designed transit map I’ve ever seen. Not only is the design quality abhorrent, but it doesn’t even show the routes as even REMOTELY geographically accurate, and fails to include about two-thirds of the stops. Why they felt it necessary to make their map in this way is beyond me.

The second image is Isaac’s quite lovely redesign of the system as a proper transit map. He’s also made a future fantasy map in the same style, but let’s compare apples with apples for now.

First off, Isaac’s appraisal of the map from the official timetable is spot on. It’s an absolute disgrace, and has instantly found a place in the Transit Maps Hall of Shame. I really don’t need to describe what’s wrong with it, because it’s pretty darn obvious. I particularly like the way that the Purple Line extends to Albuquerque, but the Turquoise Line – which also goes there – is drawn completely separately, not joining on to the top part of the map at all.

Isaac’s map, by comparison, is quite excellent. There are a few minor things that could be tweaked, but in general, this is lovely, clean design that makes the network look easy and efficient to use. I particularly like the nice, wide, sweeping curves that the routes make when they change direction: the big arc that the Turquoise Line makes as it comes into Albuquerque is quite delightful.

I’m not entirely sure about the use of Gill Sans as the main labelling type. While it’s a classic sans serif typeface, I always feel that the x-height is a little small for the best legibility. Here, that failing is especially noticeable in the smaller “subtitle” labels.

I probably would have made the shade used for the Purple Line a little darker to provide better contrast with the adjacent Blue Line through Los Alamos: at the moment, they sort of blur into each other as their colour intensity is very similar. Overall, I find the colours very pleasing, with a nice New Mexican desert feel to the palette, but these two colours could be adjusted a bit for better balance between them.

A bigger problem: using the same line thickness to denote peak hour Purple and Blue Line bus route extensions and the RailRunner commuter rail service between Belen and Santa Fe. Rail is a different transit mode to bus and needs to be differentiated visually from it. 

Finally, a letter line designation – “B” for Blue, “R” for Red”, etc. – for each route could assist colour-blind users. There’s quite a bit of empty space, so adding a couple of markers at each terminus station shouldn’t be too difficult.

Our rating: The official map obviously gets a big, fat, ZERO. Isaac’s is far superior and really very promising work. Three stars.

Historical Map: East Berlin U- and S-Bahn Map, 1988

July 5, 2014
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Another amazing historical map from that most fascinating of transit map cities, Berlin. This one shows the U-Bahn and S-Bahn networks of East Berlin in July 1988, just over a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. West Berlin is entirely omitted, with the S-Bahn ending at Friedrichstrasse with no indication of what lies further west of that point: not even a sektorengrenze.

The numbers at each station indicate the travel time from the nominal “centre” of each system – Ostkreuz for the S-Bahn and Alexanderplatz for the U-Bahn. A green square at a U-Bahn station indicates an interchange to main line trains.

The map itself is pretty basic and ugly, especially when compared to this map, made just five years previously. Route lines and labels head off in just about every possible direction and the whole thing has a very “thrown together” look. However, it’s a great historical document – one of the last East Berlin transit maps.

Source: Robin McMorran/Flickr

Historical Map: Sydney Rail Network, Early 1980s

July 5, 2014
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The latest this can be from is 1984, as Abbatoirs station closed in November of that year. I remember versions of this above the seats on the old “red rattlers” as I travelled from Epping to Petersham for school in 1985, so they were still around after their “use by” date.

In a way, this is actually one of my favourite versions of the Sydney rail map, as it has a pleasingly compact shape that more modern versions lack. If there’s one failing with the layout, it’s the huge amounts of extra space between stations on the Western Line past Doonside: far more than anywhere else on the map. 

The other weird part of the map is the visual implication that all routes can call at all stations between Burwood and Central, which simply isn’t true and never has been. At the time, I believe that “all stations” service was only provided by the Bankstown Line, with some Southern Line trains also calling at Ashfield.

However, the Bankstown Line – represented by a neat, simple loop – has never looked better, and the triangle formed by the two routes of the green Southern Line (via Regent’s Park or via Granville) also looks great.

Also of interest is the way that the City Circle is simplified down to its own route designation, rather than attempting to show how all the separate routes loop around it and head back out to the suburbs, as more recent maps do. In a way, this reflects the hub-and-spoke nature of the network and the way that the vast majority of people used it: to get from their home to the city and back again. Trains were announced simply as “To Central and the City Circle”, and it was only if you were catching a train from the City Circle back out again that you needed to know the outwards destination. No one rides the train around the whole city loop: in fact, if you know what you’re doing, you get off at Town Hall and walk to a destination near Museum station, as it’s much quicker than riding around the circle via Circular Quay.

Less useful is the separate designation of the Eastern Suburbs line, as it’s always been operationally tied to the blue Illawarra Line.

Our rating: At last, an old map of Sydney that lives up to my nostalgic memories. Three-and-a-half stars

Source: davemail66/Flickr

Historical Map: Detail of a Tokyo Streetcar Map, c. 1950

July 3, 2014
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Not much more to say here except that this is gorgeous, despite the primitive artwork and terrible colour registration.

Source: Fluoride’s memories/Flickr

Historical Map: TriMet Bus and MAX Routes, Portland, Oregon (early 1990s)

June 30, 2014
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Certainly no later than 1998 as the MAX light rail only consists of the original Westside route (later to be the Blue Line).

Of note is the continued use of the service zone icons – fish, rain, snow, beaver, leaf, rose and deer – that defined Portland’s downtown transit mall for decades. I’ve featured them before on this map from 1978, but it’s on this map where their main failing comes to the fore. Because each icon is colour-coded, each respective service area just becomes a tangled web of lines, all represented by the same colour. Cross-town routes like the 75 – which have their own colour – just go to show how much easier a route is to follow when it contrasts against nearby routes, rather than matching them exactly.

Also a little odd: not naming any of the MAX stations on the map, and labelling regular frequency bus lines against very similarly-colured background boxes, which makes the route numbers a little difficult to discern.

All in all, an interesting look at the earlier days of MAX and the later days of the service area icons. It’s also fun to see which routes have survived to the current day and which have disappeared or been combined into one route (for example, the Fish-1 and Leaf-35 have become the modern day Greeley-Macadam 35).

Our rating: A nice piece of transit history from my adopted city, if a little imperfect. Three-and-a-half stars.

Source: Screaming Ape/Flickr

Historical Map: Map of Greyhound Lines and Principal Connecting Routes, 1938

June 30, 2014
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From a booklet promoting sightseeing via Greyhound’s long-distance bus lines, which sounds like an absolutely awful way to see America. However, it’s a very handsome two-colour map that certainly highlights the apparent density of the network at that time.

Source: Umpqua/Flickr

Photo: 38 Bus Stop Map, Brooklyn

June 25, 2014
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Rough as guts, but it gets the job done, I guess. Nice big route number, easy to spot “You Are Here” arrow, a north pointer, points of interest and street names. Go!

Source: H.L. Edwards/Flickr

Historical Map: Theoretical Diagram of Proposed Transit System, St. Louis, Missouri, 1919

June 24, 2014
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Here’s a map that hyperrealcartography would love: an audacious, almost outrageous, proposal for a transit system in St. Louis drawn up by the City Plan Commission in 1919. The final proposed system shown here would have had the existing streetcars and new rapid transit lines operating side-by-side, described like this in the full proposal:

“The rapid transit system is separated into two distinct systems, that for the routing of surface cars in the downtown district, and that for a distinctly rapid transit system that would operate entirely by subway or elevated tracks within the city. There will be no contact of the two systems, excepting that the stations may be operated in common.”

Under this proposal, almost every major street in the city would have had streetcar service. Many of the east-west routes (top to bottom on this diagram) would have funnelled towards new subway loops under the business district, which would have required the total abandonment of the 8th Street railway tunnel (now used by the Metrolink light rail). Seven crosstown lines would have provided comprehensive service for those wishing to bypass downtown.

Note that this is very definitely a theoretical diagram of the system, not a map. Even a very cursory glance at St. Louis in Google Maps reveals that the city’s actual layout is nowhere near as uniform and compliant as this.

The cost for this little project? Around $97 million in 1919: equating to a cool $1.1 billion in today’s money.

P.S. The entire proposal is scanned and available to read on Google Books: definitely worth a look if you’re interested in early 20th-century city planning.

Source: Gateway Streets/Flickr