Ever since I first designed it way back in 2012, I’ve tried to keep my popular alternative Boston MBTA rapid transit map updated as new stations opened and other changes to the network happened. However, with the opening of the Silver Line route to Chelsea (SL3) earlier this year, certain parts of my design just weren’t going to cut it anymore. Looking at the old version, it was also painfully obvious to me that I […]
Submitted by Laura, who says: I have a love-hate relationship with Santiago’s Metro map. The current one excludes very useful information (particularly important for migrants and tourists) such as the existence of private buses to the Airport, or the commuter rail service to Nos (run by another company) that’s been working for more than a year now. It works just as well as the Metro using the same card and price, but for some reason […]
vignellicenter: Found in the archives! Unrealized DC Metro map designs. Although Massimo Vignelli, while at Unimark International, designed the signage for the Washington DC Metro subway in 1968, he didn’t design the map (which was designed by Lance Wyman). But we recently uncovered a variety of ideas mocked up on these presentation boards. We also found some original sketches for the signage! Stay tuned! It’s well known that the signage and wayfinding system for the DC […]
Submitted by Pablo Martin, who says: This is the Madrid metro map from 1945, I found the diagram below really interesting, as I haven’t seen a similar one for any other network. Transit Maps says: Nice find, Pablo! The geographical map is fairly clumsy and unremarkable, but the diagram beneath is very interesting. It’s what I call a “linear diagram” – each route is shown as a straight line, with interchanges indicated by a vertical joining […]
Maxwell Roberts just posted about this on Twitter, and I have to share. A bit of poking around on the Internet found a slightly better image than his, so enjoy! This is a diagram of the routes of Imperial Airways in 1935 by none other than Henry Charles Beck (yes, that H.C. Beck). I had no idea that he’d created such a diagram up until now, but it clearly bears many of the hallmarks of […]
Here’s an absolute gem, a surprisingly modern-looking diagram of trolleybus and tram routes in post-war London. Drawn by cartographer Fred J.H. Elston, the map employs 30-degree angles and radically straightened roads to great effect. All roads are clearly labelled, as are the different neighbourhoods of London, so orientation isn’t a problem. I also really like the way all the bridges are shown crossing the Thames: another effective orientation method. Underground and main line stations are […]
Here’s an absolutely wonderful diagram of rail in Indianapolis in 1907 that pares everything down to the absolute minimum required to tell the story. 43 completely evenly-spaced railroad lines (representing 18 steam lines and 25 interurbans, according to the source) enter the city, which is encircled by the aptly named Belt Railroad. The names of those 43 outer destinations spiral dramatically around the edge of the map, though the flow is perhaps broken a bit […]
Here’s one for @airlinemaps: a wonderful infographic/diagram mashup from the 1950s that packs in heaps of information, right down to the type of airplane used on each route (denoted by the colour of each line). Flight numbers, time of departure/arrival, days of service, through routing of flights… it’s all incorporated into the one graphic. And it’s trilingual as well! Compare with this very similar diagram of Polish Airlines LOT routes from 1939 (June 2015, 5 […]
Sent my way by Kyril Negoda are these two rather delightful little diagrams of trolleybus and tram services in Kaliningrad in 1990. This was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, so Kaliningrad Oblast was still physically connected to the rest of the USSR, rather than being an exclave like it is today. Stylistically, the diagrams are very similar and have a pleasant, slightly childlike feeling to them. This is aided by […]
Q Have you ever seen a ski resort map in the style of a transit map? I was thinking about attempting it, not sure if it is even feasible. A I thought it was pretty much compulsory for every ski resort in the world to have a James Niehues panoramic painting for their resort map, so it’s no surprise that I haven’t actually come across a transit map-styled one yet. The closest I’ve seen are these […]
