All posts tagged: commuter rail

Recreated Historical Map: East Berlin S-Bahn, 1980 by Maxwell Roberts

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Historical Maps

What does noted alternate transit map designer Maxwell Roberts do when he comes across a rare postcard version of the East Berlin S-Bahn network from 1980? He takes a photo of it, and then recreates it using modern design tools, of course. Remember that the S-Bahn was still operated by the GDR even in West Berlin, although West Berliners boycotted the service for the most part, preferring their own U-Bahn network. The Staatsgrenze (state border) totally dominates […]

Submission – Historical Map: Chicago Regional Transportation Authority, 1977

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Historical Maps

Submitted by Dennis McClendon, who has previously submitted material related to transit mapping in Chicago that I’ve featured on the site. This map is a real beauty, and I definitely appreciate Dennis’ ability to talk about the technical aspects of cartography in the days before computers. We take computer-aided design almost completely for granted today – but map-making was a laborious, manually performed task back then, where a scalpel, a light box and rubylith film […]

Unofficial Future Map: Metro Denver Rapid Transit by Steve Boland

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Unofficial Maps

Long-time readers will know that I’m not a huge fan of Denver’s current light rail map (April 2013, 2 stars). And it seems that I’m not the only one, as Steve Boland of calurbanist.com has turned his hand to designing a new map. We’ve featured his excellent Bay Area Rapid Transit map previously (Feb. 2013, 4.5 stars). His Denver map includes all the FasTracks extensions – light rail along I-225 through Aurora, BRT lanes on […]

Historical Map: Old Paris Metro Map Uncovered at Les Halles Station

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Historical Maps

A fantastic photo from Jean-Luc Raymond on Instagram of an old Metro map that’s just been revealed behind multiple layers of billboard advertising at Les Halles station. Definitely looks like it used to have a street grid layer which has faded away with age. I’m not entirely sure of the vintage, although I’d say it can’t be from before 1979, as that’s when the RER C opened. It’s the thicker yellow line across the top […]

Historical Map: SEPTA – July, 1983 Station Map

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Historical Maps

What an amazing trash pile find! Not much more to add – the original post below pretty much says it all: Via: jukiebot/Tumblr (no longer active): This map is from the first year that SEPTA had become fully responsible for the operations of the commuter rail system in Philadelphia. I acquired this map a little while ago while wandering around West Philly with a friend where I saw a large pile of trash by the […]

Official Map: Île-de-France Regional Transit Map, 2014

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Brought to my attention by readers Tony and Guillaume is this striking new regional transit map for the Île-de-France region that surrounds Paris. It shows not only the Paris Métro (lines 1 through 14), but also the tramways (Lines T1 through T7), RER lines (lines A through E) and the Transilien commuter rail network (lines H, J, K, L, N, P, R and U). In addition to all this, it also manages to show a wide array of bus […]

Official Map: TILO Commuter Rail – Ticino, Switzerland and Lombardy, Italy, 2014

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The emergence of a unified Europe has led to a gradual but noticeable blurring of borders between countries in Europe, which now seem to often exist only on maps. With free and easy travel between the European countries that are bound by the Schengen Agreement, it’s not impossible for people to live in one country and work in another, especially when they live close to a border. This map shows transit services in such an […]

Official Map: New York/New Jersey Regional Transit Diagram – Full Review

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After our first glimpse yesterday, now it’s time for a more in-depth look at this map. Thanks to everyone who sent me a link to the PDF (and there were more than a few of you)! First things first: an MTA press release confirms that the map was designed by Yoshiki Waterhouse of Vignelli Associates. It’s definitely nice to see that the original creators of the diagram continue to shape its future, rather than being […]

Official Map: New York/New Jersey Regional Transit Diagram for 2014

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Hot off the presses via New Jersey Transit’s Twitter account, here’s a first look at a new regional transit map that (finally!) combines New Jersey Transit rail, PATH rail and the New York Subway onto one map to “facilitate ease of travel between all three systems”. It appears to be heavily based off the Massimo Vignelli “Weekender” diagram, although I don’t know if Vignelli himself (or his studio) was actually involved in the design of […]

Submission – Unofficial/Future Map: Long Island Rail Road by Anthony Denaro

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Future Maps, Unofficial Maps

Submitted by Anthony, who says: Here’s my map of Off-Peak (weekdays, and nights) and Weekends Long Island Rail Road Service.   This map shows service diagrammatically, de-emphasizing geography for clarity of branch services and transfers, introduces a grouping color coding system for branches, and improves legibility of the system. The LIRR current map lacks both routing and geographic info – there’s no sense of connecting roads and services and no sense of which branch’s trains stop at which station – failing at […]