I originally posted this map on Twitter, but I’m also putting it on the blog for posterity, as well as to fully detail the design decisions that went into it. I’ve long thought that there’s been a design opportunity with Denver rail maps for a large circular arc for the light rail stations running south around the edge of the downtown area out of Union Station. I’ve doodled with ideas over the years, but I’ve […]
Long before the current idea of putting Teslas in tunnels and calling it rapid transit, there was PRT, or Personal Rapid Transit. The idea was that many small carriages on guideways could take people directly to their intended destination anywhere along the route – described as a “horizontal elevator” by John Volpe, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation at the time. In the early 1970s, Denver beat out 29 other cities around the U.S. and was […]
A great map of Denver from 1904, showing the extant lines of the Denver City Tramway Company (DCTC) in green, with planned lines in red – rapid expansion seemed to be the name of the game! The DCTC is unusual for a couple of reasons: it used the less common 3-foot-6-inch “colonial” narrow gauge for its lines instead of standard gauge, and referred to itself as a “tramway”, a term used almost nowhere else in […]
A great example of late 1970s American transit map design from Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) with thick, chunky route lines, minimalist design sensibilities and tightly letter-spaced sans serif headings. The map has the potential to get messy really quickly, but it’s actually all handled rather deftly and cleanly. Colour-coding differentiates between different service types (local, express, circulator and regional), and route numbers and road names are placed inside the thick route lines, which generally […]
I’ve had quite a few calls to review this map over the last day or so, with people calling it “interesting”, “quite something” and just plain “bad”. It certainly continues the somewhat haphazard evolution of the system map over the last couple of years as more lines have opened, that’s for sure. Visually, it has quite a bit in common with the last iteration I reviewed a year ago, though the most obvious change is the expansion of […]
Submitted by Dan Malouff, who says: Denver has opened several new rail lines over the past year or so. Apparently, with the most recent one, they launched a new system map. Finally they’re using consistent angles! Transit Maps says: So far, this new design only seems to be on in-car strip maps: RTD’s website still uses a version of the horrid old “wibbly lines” diagram. Small steps! It’s certainly a vast improvement over what’s come […]
Denver’s rapidly-expanding rail network took another step forward today with the opening of the new commuter rail service out to Denver International Airport – the “train to the plane”, as they (a little unoriginally) call it. However, for those – like me! – hoping for a new map to celebrate the new service, you’re in for a disappointment, as the latest offering is just a minimally-modified version of the previous map (June 2016, 1.5 stars). […]
While we’re talking about the Flatiron Flyer, I do like this simple little interactive map on the RTD website about the project. You simply click on your start and end destinations and it tells you which route(s) you can catch and what your fare options are. Neat! (Again, I think that the numbering would have worked better if the current FF5 had slid down to be FF3, moving FF3 and FF4 up one spot each, […]
Submitted by Steve Mohan, who says: RTD just began Service on the Flatiron Flyer, which is a basically a rebranding of all the Denver-Boulder routes. As part of this, they updated the timetables system-wide to include a map of the route. Because they’re selling this as BRT, they’ve added this rail-like route map. Personally, I like it. It’s simple and easy to read. The color coding of each route corresponds to the color of the […]
Sent in by Edward Russell, who says: Possible base for new Denver rail map? I spotted this map showing the new rail lines opening in Denver in 2016 on the train. I like the design a lot more than the official rail map. It seems much cleaner and clearer then the other maps that you have shown. What do you think? Could this be a good base – clearly they’d have to add the existing […]
