All posts tagged: Bay Area

Unofficial Map – Bay Area Rail One-Word Station Names by Brian Stokle

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Unofficial Maps

A tongue-in-cheek rationalisation of Bay Area rail transit to remove all the slashes in those terribly long and indecisive station names: North Concord/Martinez, Warm Springs/South Fremont, etc. Amusing, but also a pointed look at the peculiarly American habit of attempting to appease everyone when it comes to naming stations. Now, can someone do one of these for Washington, DC? *cough* U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo *cough* Source: Urban Life Signs

Submission – “Transit Flow” by Ray Luong

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Visualizations

A visual exploration of BART ridership throughout a typical workday. Watching the video below is fun, but the actual tool – made with HTML/CSS, JS, .d3.js, Sketch and BART ridership data – is even better. Click here to view it.  After you’ve watched it through to about 2pm, some controls will appear down the bottom left to change the speed of the simulation, and also switch between “inbound” and “outbound” trains (which I think should be labeled […]

Visualization: The Commutometer

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Visualizations

By now, everyone should know that I love a good isochrone map, so I’ve definitely been having fun with the Commutometer. It’s an online map that uses data from nine transit agencies around the San Francisco Bay Area to show you how far you can get from your currently selected point by public transport in a certain amount of time. It defaults to 30 minutes, but you can set it from anywhere from 5 minutes to […]

Official Map: “Draw Your Own” Future SFMTA Transit Map

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Future Maps, Official Maps

Suddenly, it seems that “draw-your-own” subway maps are all the rage. Hot on the heels of Jason Wright’s fun Brand New Subway game comes this slightly more serious planning tool released by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) in conjunction with other local authorities.  The stated goal of the tool is simple: Where do you want subway transit in SF? Just draw lines on the map where you want ‘em to go, add some stations and […]

Future Fantasy Map: Consolidated Bay Area Rapid Transit, 2050 by Adam Susaneck

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Fantasy Maps, Future Maps

Here at Transit Maps, we see quite a few unified Bay Area maps. It seems that that the fractured nature of all the different transit agencies in the area seems to frustrate quite a few people, which drives them to try and make something better. The latest is this effort by Adam Susaneck, showing what things could look like in 2050 or so in a perfect world.  It’s impeccably researched – head on over to […]

Submission – Maps from the 1977 “Golden Gate Transit Guide”, showing South Marin and Larkspur Ferry Bus Services

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Historical Maps

Submitted by Denis Agar, who says: Check out the Marin County transit maps on page 110 of this thesis (source below). They’re so distinct! Maybe you’ve seen them but I couldn’t NOT send you these. Vignelli much? Transit Maps says: I haven’t seen these before, Denis – and you’re right: they’re absolutely fantastic. I feel that the mid- to late-1970s was a time when America actually embraced clean, modernist “European” design, especially on the West […]

Submission – Unofficial Maps: Bay Area Rail Transit by Lyle Simmons

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Unofficial Maps

Submitted via email by Lyle, who says: The Bay Area has one of the most complex and diverse urban transit systems in the world, including three commuter rail systems, one metro systems, two light rail systems, one heritage streetcar line, and four major bus agencies. Unfortunately, there isn’t an official map linking any of these services together, so I thought I might make one myself. Transit Maps says: There’s a lot to like about the […]

Submission: Time Scale Map of Bay Area Rapid Transit by Michael Lopato

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Unofficial Maps, Visualizations

Submitted by Michael, who says: Today, I would like to submit a different sort of map.  Most time scale maps that I have seen so far (such as this one or this one) involve two common elements: a central station or origin, and concentric circles representing time.  Though I believe that both of these are very good maps, this approach might be better suited to a city like Pittsburgh (where nearly everyone commutes to the […]

Rail Services of the Bay Area, September 1937 by David Edmondson

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Historical Maps

David, who runs The Greater Marin blog, has created this absolutely superb modern transit diagram version of rail services in the Bay Area in 1937. He’s used a contemporaneous railway timetable as his main source of information, so it seem to be pretty accurate, although he’s still seeking final feedback about the map’s content before finishing the project up. Stylistically, the map quite obviously borrows from Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map, complete with black […]