Rather clever and well-executed “under construction” signage seen in Tottenham Court station back in 2010.
Source: Luigi Rosa/Flickr
Photo: We are Transforming Your Tube
Historical Map: Rapid Transit Plan by the City of Seattle, 1920
Here’s an interesting map that shows a plan for rapid transit that city engineers envisioned for Seattle way back in 1920, almost 100 years ago!
The map shows a subway running beneath Third Avenue from Virginia to Yesler, coming to the surface near the railroad stations – essentially the route followed by the present-day Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Trains going up to Capitol Hill would follow a line up Pine Street that would be alternately underground and elevated, ending at 15th Avenue East. An elevated line would serve Pigeon Point in West Seattle, while surface rapid transit would connect with the existing streetcar service at stations in Fremont, lower Queen Anne, and the University District.
Source: Seattle Municipal Archives/Flickr
Photo: In Between, Montréal
Official Map: Transit of Magdeburg, Germany, 2014
Submitted by keks63, who says:
I really enjoy your blog, so I thought I would submit the transit map of my nearest German city. The network features 9 tram lines (1 to 10, they did not make a line 7 for some reason), and several bus and ferry lines. The city has about 200,000 inhabitants, and the tram serves all the important areas, you do not need a car to live in Magdeburg, which is very nice. I find this map quite good to use, however there is some confusion going on around “Alter Markt” and “Allee-Center” stations. But all in all, I think it’s a good transit map for a medium-sized German city.
Transit Maps says:
This is almost the archetypal German transit map: clean and clinical design that conveys a lot of information without any fuss. The trams are given the highest priority, followed by the bus lines and then the S-bahn, which has its station names highlighted in the distinctive green used almost universally across Germany for such services.
While I don’t necessarily find the Alter Markt/Allee-Center area difficult to understand, the way the routes seem to overlap randomly as they cross here is a little odd. There’s also one glaring mistake: the icons cover the station name at Jerichower Platz on the east side of the map where tram lines 5 and 6 join.
Our rating: About as German as a transit map can be. Three-and-a-half stars.
Source: Official MVB website
Official Map: Daytime Transport Services of Budapest, Hungary, 2014
In addition to the Metro/suburban rail only map that was introduced with the new Metro Line 4, there’s also this more comprehensive city map that adds tram, key bus routes, ferries and more to the mix. It’s more directly analogous to the old Budapest map (July 2012, 2.5 stars), and is also highly reminiscent of this Prague integrated transit map (August 2012, 4 stars).
Definitely aimed at tourists (the PDF file even has the word “turisztikai” in its file name) to give them a good idea of transit options within the central city, the map does a good job of that: the river and park areas work nicely to define the shape of the city and the Metro is given good hierarchical prominence. There’s even some nicely executed simple icons for points of interest around town.
Instead of the approach taken on the previous map, where each tram line was given its own colour, here they’re all represented by yellow. It’s a little odd that it’s the exact same colour as Metro Line 1, but the difference in stroke weight makes it immediately obvious which is which. Key bus routes are shown in blue, and the unique cogwheel railway (Line 60) is highlighted in magenta. For those who are curious, the “Children’s Railway” shown to the far left of the map is not necessarily a railway for children, it’s a railway operated by children (apart from adult supervision and the actual driver of the train).
The only real flaws with this map in my eyes are some overly fussy route lines for buses, particularly the 291 just north of Metro Line 2 on the west side of the river and the strangely jarring choice of Times New Roman for neighbourhood names.
Our rating: Excellent overview of transportation options in Budapest. Looks good and is easy to follow. Four stars.
Source: Official BKK website
Photo: Passeggiando in Valcamonica
Giant map of regional rail in Lombardy on the floor of Milan’s Repubblica station.
Source: beriapaolo/Flickr
Official Map: TRANSPO Bus System, South Bend, Indiana
Suggested by Jeff Bridgman.
This is probably a good example of how not to make a black-and-white map. They only get away with it at all because the system is so simple – there’s only 17 or 18 routes, and they have hardly any overlap because of the radial “hub and spoke” nature of the network.
Yes, you can actually work out where the buses go, but it’s all just a bit dismal. There’s quite a few examples of black label type crossing a black route line, which doesn’t really help much. The positioning of labels for roads is haphazard and inconsistent, with a strange partially transparent grey box placed behind some of the type. I guess it’s meant to aid legibility, but doesn’t actually help much at all. Parks and nature centers sit above roads in the layer order, so they butt into the roads and even cross them entirely in some places. Meanwhile, the runways at the airport appear to have been rendered as if they were roads. The map also features one of the most ridiculously oversized north pointers I’ve ever seen.
The other big failing of this map are the icons used for different points of interest on the map. Three of them – apartment or mobile home park, shopping center or mall and point of interest itself – all have quite similar visual shapes (they’re all roughly rectangular within the enclosing ellipse shape) and thus are quite difficult to tell apart at the small sizes used on the map. Bizarrely, the icon used for recreation facility is a comedy cap with a propeller on top! What?
Our rating: Works – just – as a somewhat functional map because of the small size of the network. Still serves as a cautionary tale as it gets an awful lot wrong. One star.
Source: Official TRANSPO website (scroll down to the “Rider’s Guide” section)
Adorable Hand-Drawn Seoul Metro Map
Photo: Istanbul Metro Station Sign
Well, I guess that’s one place to put your map. It’s nice and visible from both platforms, at least!
Source: SpirosK photography/Flickr
Official Map: MARC Commuter Rail Map, 2014
Ugh. A terrible JPG of a decidedly ugly map. There’s so much to dislike about this: the blocky label type; the tiny, indecipherable symbols used for the Metro and light rail in Baltimore and the insultingly poor renditions of the logos of connecting services (WMATA, Amtrak and VRE); the ridiculously ornate and garishly coloured compass rose; the soft “glow” effect applied to the MARC routes… the list goes on. Not to mention the mistakes, like the incorrect colour for the Brunswick Line on the legend and the missing “railway line” ticks on the Camden line.
Our rating: Slipshod work with an ugly result. One star.