All posts tagged: cartography

Submission – Historical Map: The Bogue Plan For Seattle, 1911

March 2, 2016
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Submitted by SounderBruce, who says: Of Seattle’s many, many unsuccessful attempts to build a rapid transit system, none sting more than the century-old Bogue Plan. Rejected by a landslide of 10,000 votes (out of 40,000 total cast) on March 5, 1912, Virgil Bogue’s ambitious comprehensive plan to convert the regraded remains of Denny Hill into a Beaux-Arts civic center reminiscent of European city centers would have been well served by 91 miles of rapid transit […]

Official Map: Geographical “London Connections” Map by TfL

September 17, 2015
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Here’s a map that’s been doing the rounds over the last few days, and has now been sent my way by many, many readers (Thanks to all of you!). Compared to the familiar standard Tube map, It’s a more geographically accurate map of rail services in and around London (as of late 2014), and opinions on it seem to be quite divided. Some people think it’s more useful than the normal Tube map, some think […]

Submission – Historical Map: The Routes of Imperial Airways and of Associated Companies, 1936

September 15, 2015
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Submitted by Mattias Lq, who says: I know how you don’t like many airway maps trying to be schematic, but this one is a rather successful combination of a simplified geographical map and a schematic inset showing frequencies throughout the year. Although it has some minor beauty flaws here and there, it is really a beautiful map, especially considering the five colours used to print the map! What do you say? Transit Maps says: Mattias, […]

Reader Question: Are there any resources available for exporting city map data to vector format for importing into Illustrator?

June 14, 2015
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Question: Are there any resources available for exporting city map data (similar to Google Maps, etc) to vector format for importing into Illustrator? Do you utilize any pre-existing data for your projects, or do you simple start from scratch? I’m thinking of your Dallas streetcar map in particular. Answer: To be honest, most of the time, I just start from scratch. My very low-tech workflow is to quickly grab some screenshots from Google Maps or similar […]

Visualization: Amtrak Ridership Map for Fortune.com

June 10, 2015
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I’m kind of loving this elegantly simple two-colour Amtrak ridership map produced for an article on Fortune.com. It certainly shows the dominance of the Northeast Corridor in terms of ridership!  Cartographically speaking, I really like the unusual “perspective” projection, which – when combined with some lovely and subtle relief shading – certainly gives the impression of looking down from high above the continent. The labelling of the routes perhaps doesn’t quite live up to the […]

Visualization: The remarkable distances you can travel on a European train in less than a day

June 5, 2015
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postgraphics: Tourists visiting Europe are often advised to travel by train rather than plane or car. Trains are considered reliable, fast and relatively cheap. But as a new research project shows, there are major differences within Europe: Whereas you can travel from London to Paris in less than four hours, traveling the same distance can last more than 22 hours in eastern Europe. A nice little series of isochrone maps showing how far you can […]

Submission – Historical Map: Melbourne Tramways of WWI

May 8, 2015
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Hi Cam, Adam from the Melbourne Tram Museum here. Would love to get your thoughts on this! This is my first map done from scratch. We’ve recently launched our special exhibition named Tramway Anzacs, which tells the story of the 538 tramway employees who volunteered for military service in World War 1. As well as sharing their fascinating stories (including a guy who went from being a Cable Tram Gripman at Port Melbourne depot to fighting alongside Lawrence of […]

The NY Subway Map with Background Colours Adjusted to Match the Vignelli Diagram, by Shawn Sprockett

April 17, 2015
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Mash-Up Maps, Unofficial Maps
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I saw the animated GIF above on Twitter yesterday, and Shawn was kind enough to share the whole map with me, so I present it here. As Shawn himself says: I took Vignelli’s color contrast + existing map’s geographic accuracy = the subway map of my dreams. … cheekily addressing the MTA’s Twitter account and asking them to “please fix.” Shawn’s revision definitely allows the subway lines (without doubt, the most important element of the map) […]

Historical Map: “Wonders of New York” by Nils Hansell, c. 1953-1955

December 20, 2014
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Here’s a gorgeous and beautifully detailed map of New York (well, Manhattan, but at least it says there are “many places of interest on the other side of the river”!). It was designed by Nils Hansell, a graphic designer and sailing enthusiast who also worked for some years at IBM (according to the blurb over at the site I found the map, anyway). As well as some 300-odd numbered points of interest (as seen in […]