All posts tagged: 4 stars

Historical Map: BART System Map and Planned Extensions, March 1, 1989

March 13, 2018
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Here’s a rather charming illustrated map showing the Bay Area’s BART commuter rail system as it looked in early 1989, plus a glimpse into the future as it was envisioned at the time. I particularly like the little details in this map – drawn by Art Richardson of BART’s “Documentation Division” back in 1983, it would seem – all the bridges are drawn accurately, and the skylines of San Francisco and Oakland are also well […]

Official Map: Rail Services of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina by Sebastian Gagin

January 9, 2018
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I stumbled across this beautiful piece a while ago while trawling Behance – an integrated diagram of rail services in and around Buenos Aires. The author says that the project was developed for the city’s Secretary of Transport, so I have to assume that this is official, though I haven’t found it in use anywhere else yet. The diagram shows both the Subte subway lines (in their familiar colours) and the commuter rail lines that […]

Historical Map: Lines of the Utah Light & Traction Co., Salt Lake City, 1940

October 27, 2017
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A great old map of transit from Salt Lake City, showing bus lines (in green), trolleybus lines (in red, and curiously referred to as “electric coaches”, a designation that only seems to have been used here), and the one last remaining streetcar line (in blue). Even that seems to be on its last legs, as the legend says that Line 5 could be served by “street car or gas bus”. I believe the last streetcar ran in […]

Submission – Official Map: Baku Metro, Azerbaijan by Ramin Həsənəlizadə

August 23, 2017
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I must admit that when Ramin sent me a link to his Behance project page for this map a while ago, I assumed it was a (very accomplished) unofficial project. It was only when I followed the website link at the bottom of the sheet that I realised that this was actually the new official map for the Baku Metro.  It’s definitely a huge improvement over the previous lacklustre version (second image above) and looks […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: London’s Rail Services by David Milne

August 2, 2017
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Submitted by David, who says: This all started about 17 years ago as an exercise to teach myself to use Macromedia Freehand. The years passed, Freehand became Adobe Illustrator, and I continued to work on it. The original Idea was to create an A4 sized map to carry around in my pocket, but it quickly became apparent that to contain the desired detail and remain legible it would have to be printed at A1 or […]

Historical Map: A Progress Report on the Interstate Highway System, 1961

July 27, 2017
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A great old map on a subject matter very dear to my heart – the Interstate Highway System. Produced in 1961 by the Caterpillar Tractor Company, who stood to gain a great deal in the construction work required to complete the network, it shows the proposed completed network in white, sections under construction with blue dashes, and – somewhat counter-intuitively – sections that are open to traffic in red. It’s immediately apparent how little of […]

Historical Map: 1967 San Francisco Muni Rapid Transit Plan

June 23, 2017
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I’m ever so slightly in love with this simple little map showing proposed rapid transit lines in San Francisco. There’s some lovely texture for the parkland, a nice vignetted effect for the coastline, and some great mid-century typography as well – all rather delightful!  There’s a great information hierarchy as well, with buses being thin light blue lines, then trolley buses slightly thicker brown lines. Cable cars are shown by thin black lines that still […]

Fantasy Map: Roman Roads in 125AD as a Subway Map by Sasha Trubetskoy

June 6, 2017
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Here’s a map that’s right up my alley (I actually really wish I’d thought of doing it myself!) – a superb visualization of the major Roman roads of the second century AD. The legendary straightness of Roman roads makes them a great candidate for this style of diagram, and Sasha’s made it look very attractive, with a lovely colour palette and distinctive station dots. The very official-looking Roman Empire logos at the bottom left are […]

Submission – Historical Maps: Trolleybus and Tram Diagrams of Kaliningrad, USSR, 1990

May 25, 2017
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Sent my way by Kyril Negoda are these two rather delightful little diagrams of trolleybus and tram services in Kaliningrad in 1990. This was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, so Kaliningrad Oblast was still physically connected to the rest of the USSR, rather than being an exclave like it is today. Stylistically, the diagrams are very similar and have a pleasant, slightly childlike feeling to them. This is aided by […]

Submission – Future Official Map: Oklahoma City Streetcar, 2017

February 17, 2017
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Submitted by Kara Fischer, who says: I don’t know if you’ve seen this one yet, but here’s the page for the upcoming Oklahoma City Streetcar, featuring probably my favorite official streetcar map that I’ve ever seen. The color scheme is calm yet visible, the map doesn’t feel cluttered despite identifying every street and countless landmarks, walking times are included in relevant places, and the position of the station marker indicates the side of the road […]