I’ve often lamented that Sydney’s transit maps each seem to live in a “mode vacuum”, where each individual map steadfastly refuses to acknowledge any other mode of transit, even though they’re all operated by the same agency. So the light rail map won’t show any connections to the main Sydney Train network, and the ferry map ignores the major train station located directly behind Circular Quay… that kind of stuff.

Unfortunately, this new attempt at an integrated transit map fails so completely at presenting a coherent overview of the complete network that I really wish that they hadn’t even bothered. First off, this map seems to have more in common with the previous CityRail map than the current Sydney Trains map, which doesn’t present a very consistent branding effort. 

All the main line trains are now presented in uniform “T”-branded orange, so it’s basically impossible to work out any service patterns. However, the map resolutely clings to depicting each service as a separate line, which is just ridiculous in the context of this map. Simplifying the train services down to a single-weight route line labelling all the stations would have made more sense, and would have opened up the map, allowing the other modes to get equal visual weight – the ferry and light rail services have to be jammed into some very tight spaces!

Question: why do certain railway stations get called out like major interchanges when they’re not visibly interchanging with anything? This is especially noticeable along the Southern Highlands line, where Picton, Mittagong, Bowral and more all get a peculiar “double tick” treatment with a bold label. Of course, the answer is that these stations have interchanges with country bus services, but those aren’t shown on this map at all, so the ticks no longer have any meaning.

Last time I looked, Kiama was located on the coast, not several kilometres inland. 

The depiction of light rail and ferry services are probably the least worst part of this mess, although you’d never know that the Lewisham West light rail stop is less than a 500-metre walk from Lewisham station from this map.

If those two services are shown tolerably, the depiction of bus services definitely is not. All of greater Sydney just gets covered in a light orange zone that means “buses go here.” It’s so ridiculously desultory that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And the label for Southern Sydney gets placed outside the shaded area, so… are there no buses there?

Finally, there’s the enormous and bizarre directional labels: “West to Dubbo” and “North to Byron Bay”. Neither of these locations have the slightest thing to do with Sydney’s transportation network and don’t even really make sense from a statewide transportation perspective. And poor old south doesn’t get a label at all.

Our rating: Very little of this makes any sense whatsoever. Poorly thought out, lazily executed and pretty much useless. Would have been much improved by showing major bus corridors and highlighting important interchange locations. The blanket “We have buses in Sydney!” shading is just embarrassing. Half a star, and that’s only because I think the little illustrative icons at the top left are kind of neat.

Source: Transport NSW “Exploring Sydney” web page – but deleted almost immediately after being posted