All posts tagged: 3.5 stars

Unofficial Map: Future Sydney Rail Network by u/Toweringhorizons

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Future Maps, Unofficial Maps

I just stumbled across this unofficial vision of Sydney’s rail transit around the year 2030 or so (mainly because the discussion about it on Reddit was linking to old Sydney maps on my blog), and I have to say that I really quite like it. The 30/60 angles actually suit the network really well, and set up some nice axes and patterns throughout the diagram. I especially like the way the Cumberland Line heads straight […]

Submission – Official Map: Integrated Map of Transit in Prague, 2020

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Official Maps

Submitted by Jan Kolarik, who says: Hi Cameron! I was just browsing through your review archives and saw that the last time you covered Prague was in 2012 [A variety of maps were reviewed back then: full service, overview and “just right” Metro and tram – Cam]. Recently the transit authority PID (Pražská integrovaná doprava, Prague integrated transportation) released a map of a never before seen scale that I thought you might be interested in […]

Historical Map: Suburban Rail Map of Adelaide, South Australia, 1985

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Historical Maps

A solid mid-1980s map of Adelaide’s surprisingly extensive suburban rail network – though there’s less branch lines than seen on this 1978 map, and many of the ones shown here would disappear in the next few years, no longer seen as profitable. The fact that all rail services are numbered allows short-turn and branch services to be easily discerned – on the green line, the 82 goes from Adelaide Station to Belair, while the 83 […]

Submission – Official Map: BART System Map, 2020

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Official Maps

A few requests for a review of this major revision of the Bay Area’s BART map, so here goes… This map is meant to be deployed when service to Milpitas and Berryessa begins, so it won’t be seen immediately – but it’s good that BART is planning ahead and getting this work done ahead of time. Generally, there’s a lot to like about this iteration – the stylised coastline suits the schematic treatment of the route […]

New Official Map: Singapore MRT System Map, 2019

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Official Maps

A design hinted at by Jug Cerovic after last year’s Transit Mapping Symposium, and seen in a photograph earlier this year has finally been made official. Here’s the new Singapore MRT map, currently only installed at the new Thomson-East Coast Line stations (Woodlands North, Woodlands and Woodlands South) but planned to be rolled out to the entire network. Of note is that the process for this redesign began way back in 2015 with a lot […]

Historical Map: Transit Map of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1969

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Historical Maps

A simple and modernist diagram of transit services in Halifax, produced in advance of the system converting from a mix of buses and trolleybuses to all diesel buses on January 1, 1970. The disclaimer that “a full-colour map will be available shortly” seems to indicate that this particular map was somewhat of a placeholder effort until a final solution was produced. Despite that, it’s quite handsome in its simplicity and the clear explanatory text to […]

Historical Map: Denver RTD Bus Network, 1977

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Historical Maps

A great example of late 1970s American transit map design from Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) with thick, chunky route lines, minimalist design sensibilities and tightly letter-spaced sans serif headings. The map has the potential to get messy really quickly, but it’s actually all handled rather deftly and cleanly. Colour-coding differentiates between different service types (local, express, circulator and regional), and route numbers and road names are placed inside the thick route lines, which generally […]

Official Map: Subway and Streetcar Map of Toronto, 2019

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Official Maps

Seen on Twitter, and requested by a few readers is this new map from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) that shows both Toronto’s subway and streetcar networks. It’s a great concept, though perhaps overdue, so how does it stack up? Overall, it’s really rather good. The larger poster format finally frees the subway part of the map from the compressed confines of the narrow above-the-door strip map, though they will still exist alongside these new […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Rail Transit of Dortmund, Germany by Moritz Köhler

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Unofficial Maps

Submitted by Moritz, who says: It’s me again, Moritz – this time with an unofficial redesign of the light rail and regional rail map of my hometown, Dortmund. The light rail network itself is based on a simple principle where the trunk routes form a triangle in the city centre, thus allowing to reach every station with no more than one change of trains at one of the three central intersecting points. To depict this […]

Submission – Fantasy Map: Integrated Rail Diagram of Washington, DC and Baltimore by Chris Smere

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Fantasy Maps

Submitted by Chris, who says: This is one of my latest works: an integrated rail diagram for the Baltimore and Washington DC areas. The style is inspired by Vignelli’s subway maps from the 70s. There are no intentional geographic references. I have tried to show all rail services – heavy, light rail and streetcar – in the same manner (all strokes are of the same thickness). Station indicators are different depending on service/transportation mode (circle = metro, subway, square = light […]