All posts tagged: hall of shame

Submission – Official Map: Bus Map of Kielce, Poland, 2016

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Submitted by Cyryl, who says: Kielce is a mid-sized (200,000 inhabitants) city in Poland, well-known across transport enthusiasts for its extremely inefficient transport system, consisting of over 60 infrequent (most of them make under 10 trips each way per day) lines. Local transport authority tried to make things a little bit easier… and produced something equally awful. It’s not easy to make meaningful scheme when you have nearly fifty lines on one stop, but this […]

Submission – Official Map: Transportes Sul Do Tejo Bus Routes, Portugal, 2015

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Submitted by Miles Taylor, who says: Here’s the system “diagram” of the TST bus system south of Lisbon in Portugal. It’s impossible to tell what any of the routes are since they’re all just blue lines zigzagging across the map. Not to mention the place names are in comic sans. Ugh. Transit Maps says: The only – and I do mean only – saving grace for this map is that it appears on the same web […]

Submission – Official Map: Central London Night Bus Routes

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Submitted by ruddlesrocket, who says: What do you think of this?  I think it’s probably the worst map that TfL produce, having neither the benefits of geographically accurate maps (it’s difficult to know what streets the buses run along), and diagrammatic maps, in that it’s almost impossible to trace the route taken by one bus. Transit Maps says: I totally agree with this assessment! I’ll never understand why some night service maps completely eschew the principles […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Park and Ride Commuter Bus, Northern New Mexico by Isaac Fischer

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Isaac submitted this in two parts, which I’ve combined into one post here.  Of the first image, Isaac says: This is the map that New Mexico Park and Ride provides in their system timetable; it’s probably the worst designed transit map I’ve ever seen. Not only is the design quality abhorrent, but it doesn’t even show the routes as even REMOTELY geographically accurate, and fails to include about two-thirds of the stops. Why they felt […]

Submission – Official Map: Bus Network of Marburg, Germany, 2014

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Submitted by Hubert, who says: You really should review more ugly, messed up maps as they serve as deterrent examples. This eyesore of a map is what made me aware of the fact that transit map design is not as easy as it seems. I once sat in line 7 and it took me twenty minutes to figure out whether the bus served the Elisabethkirche Station in my direction of travel. This is literally the […]

Official Map: Bus Network of Brownsville, Texas

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A strong entry into the Transit Maps Hall of Shame from Brownsville, Texas, with this map that depicts the Brownsville Urban System (or “BUS” — I see what they did there). Where to start with this awfulness? Probably with the graduated blue background that causes visual dissonance (that shimmering edge when colours clash horribly) with just about everything else on the map, especially the red street name labels! It also makes the underlying grey road network […]

Official Map: Salt Lake City Rail Transit for Opening of New “S Line”

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Submitted by the eagle-eyed Garrett Smith, who says: I must say I am not overly impressed with UTA’s revision of their rail map—which will begin to be posted in trains once UTA’s first streetcar, the S Line, opens. Yes, it certainly is better than before. Removing addresses from the map did wonders for improving legibility. But that’s about it. Call me old fashioned, but shouldn’t the lines below the station names roughly correspond to the […]

Official Map: Public Transport Network of Debrecen, Hungary, 2013

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Sent my way via a comment left on the website regarding the woeful map of Szeged, Hungary (Sept. 2013, 0.5 stars), here’s another truly awful transit map from Hungary: this one from its second-largest city, Debrecen. In short, it’s an absolute disaster. Route lines branch off in any direction (no constraining angles to 45-degree increments for this bad boy!), while labels are jammed in wherever they can fit, at any old angle. The labelling is […]

Salt Lake City UTA TRAX and FrontRunner: now officially the most embarrassing transit maps in the U.S.

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Seriously. Do they even care at all any more? With the opening of the new TRAX light rail Green Line extension to the airport, the UTA has updated their website with new maps. Well, only partially, which is bad enough in itself. If you go to the System Maps page, you still get a combined pre-extension TRAX/FrontRunner map (reviewed here, Dec 2012, half a star). However, if you click on the TRAX or FrontRunner icons, […]