All posts tagged: California

Historical Map: San Joaquin County, California, c. 1910

October 11, 2023
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Here’s a beautiful old illustrative map – this is from a prospectus advertising the benefits of settling in San Joaquin County, California in 1910. Part of depicting this as a desirable place to live and do business is showing the multitude of modern railway lines – including several electric interurbans – almost all of which seem to converge upon Stockton, neatly in the middle of the map. This being an advertising tool, the situation shown […]

New Official Map: Los Angeles Metro with Regional Connector, 2023

June 12, 2023
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Just dropped on the LA Metro Twitter account, here’s a first look at their new system map once the Regional Connector opens at noon, this Friday June 16. First off, one prediction I made in my previous review [October 2022] has been proven true: this map marks the end of the old colour-based line designations. No more Red Line, Blue Line, etc. – it’s now A, B, C and so on. I’ll also note that […]

New Official Map: San Francisco Muni Metro Map with Central Subway

January 7, 2023
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This map has actually been out for a while, but today – celebrating the full opening of the Central Subway – seemed like the appropriate day to post about it. Design-wise, this is very much an evolution of previous efforts (see my review of the post-COVID resumption of service map here) and thus shares many of the same features and faults. I still don’t agree with the decision to have station labels set in the […]

Official Map: Los Angeles Metro Rail & Busway Map, 2022

October 7, 2022
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LA Metro opened the first operating segment of the K Line today, and there’s a new map to go along with it! As we haven’t reviewed this map since 2016 (when the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica opened!), it’s high time for a new look. The first thing I noticed is how this version of the map seems to be a point-by-point correction of the perceived flaws that I noted in that 2016: the […]

Historical Map: Peninsular Electric Railway, California, c. 1908

August 3, 2022
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An attractive bird’s-eye panoramic map of the lines of the Peninsular Railway (1900–1934), affectionately known as “the Pin” by locals. The railway was founded as a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad to provide connecting electric interurban service through the Santa Clara Valley from San Jose. The map itself is a fairly typical example of the genre, though the curved labels for locality names along the lines are an unusual and effective device for enclosing […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Caltrain Service Diagram by Fern K Hahn

May 23, 2022
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Submitted by Fern, who says: Frustrated with illegible service patterns and a pretty ugly system map (viewable here – Cam), I made my own line map for the Caltrain regional railway along the SF Peninsula. Curious what you think! Transit Maps says: This is a great example of how a transit diagram doesn’t need to be flashy or over designed to be successful – just clear and easy to understand. Similar in execution to Japanese […]

Submission – Unofficial Future Map: Consolidated Rail Map of San Francisco by Griffin Ashburn

January 10, 2022
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Submitted by Griffin, who says: Attached is a diagram/sort-of fantasy map I recently made showing all the various rail services and connections in San Francisco. I’ve never been a fan of how Muni shows service connections on their official map – BART is typically included, though never Caltrain, nor BART’s connection to the airport, which I think is a fairly important to have. I also decided to include the F Market & Wharves street car […]

Historical Map: BART “Going Places” Advertising Supplement Poster, 1982

March 26, 2021
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Here’s a fantastic poster designed as the centre spread of an advertising supplement to various Bay Area newspapers to celebrate the first ten years of BART (1972–1982). The immediately recognisable system diagram is overlaid on top of some charming line illustrations of landmarks and attractions, with the routes of BART Express buses also indicated. It’s all very simple – the illustration looks like it’s been done with some coloured fine felt-tip pens – but it’s […]

Submission – A History of San Francisco Area Street Rail Transit by Travis Emick

February 19, 2021
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Submitted by Travis, who says: I made an animated visualization of the light rail infrastructure of San Francisco from 1850–to–nowish. I was wondering if you would be interested in posting! Transit Maps says: I sure would be, Travis! This is a great 15-minute video that succinctly outlines the rise and fall of rail-based street transit in San Francisco, Oakland and even Marin County. The sheer number of competing companies in the early years is quite […]

Official Map: Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT) System Map, 2021

February 16, 2021
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If the previous RideKC map is an example of a system diagram that doesn’t quite reach its full potential, then this is an example of one that surely does. Really, every system map should strive to be this excellent: a simplified bespoke base map allows just the right amount of geographical information to be shown. The intelligent rotation of the map slightly counter-clockwise to match the local perception of “north”. The use of colour to […]