The Los Angeles Metro opened up a new beta version of its website for public review today. The first noticeable thing is that the interactive system map is front and centre on the home page – the very first thing that you see upon entering the site. No having to click through to the deepest depths of the website just to find a map here, something too many agencies still insist on doing. It’s still […]
The LA Metro Twitter account just shared this new map, ready just in time for the opening of the Expo Line’s extension to Santa Monica tomorrow. Overall, it’s a really nice map, continuing the strong, unified branding and design that Metro deploys across everything: maps, signage, vehicles, stations, their website and other communications material. However, there are a few points of interest worth talking about. First, the map no longer shows Metrolink commuter rail lines, […]
Taken from a Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD) Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), this map shows the then-preferred alignment for what would eventually become the LA Metro Red Line. The FEIS called for an 18.6 mile alignment, all underground, with 18 stations. The cost in 1983 dollars was projected to be $2.47 billion (or around $5.88 billion in today’s money). An alternative called for an alignment with some aerial sections for $2.41 billion, while […]
Submitted by SounderBruce, who says: The fairly new Metrolink map I came across caught my eye because of the way LA Metro is integrated, showing the termini of lines that don’t even come close to touching Metrolink’s network. Also of note is the prominent inclusion of the Amtrak Surfliner and the Coaster/Sprinter further south. Transit Maps says: When your commuter rail system spans six populous Southern Californian counties, it’s a nice touch to indicate how […]
Here’s an absolutely superb piece of interactive mapping that overlays the routes of the Pacific Electric streetcar system (the “Red Cars”) onto a modern Google aerial map of the greater Los Angeles area. That’s interesting enough by itself, but this map goes further, and pinpoints the still-extant remnants of this once-great network – stations, uncovered sections of old track, power substations, railway bridges and more – and has photographs from many of these locations. It’s wonderfully […]
Nice work here from Steve, adapting the current Metro strip maps into their future forms – with consistent letter designations for all the lines (starting to roll out now, I believe), the new Pink “L” Line designation for the proposed northern branch of the current Green Line to Aviation/96th, the new configurations of the current Blue and Gold Lines once the Regional Connector opens in 2020, and the first phase Purple “C” Line extension to […]
When is a bus map not a bus map? When it doesn’t really show any routes at all, that’s when. While this cheerfully cartoonish map might show destinations and label some major roads with bus route numbers, I think that anyone – let alone tourists new to LA! – would find it very difficult to actually navigate their way anywhere using only this map. It just about works as an introduction to the region and […]
Posted by Seiji Tanaka on his Twitter account, here’s a fictional MBTA map at an LA Metro station for film/TV shooting. The map is at the fictional “Rockwater” station on the equally fictional Yellow Line (replacing the real world Orange Line). We’ve covered fictional transit maps from TV shows and movies before (this weird DC Metro map from the TV show “Leverage” springs to mind), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one where the […]
A very simple map showing the first segment of Los Angeles’ Red Line on its opening in January 1993. The Blue Line (part of which is also shown on this map) had opened three years earlier. The map is mainly notable for the “RTD” logo that belonged to the Southern California Regional Transit District, the immediate ancestor of today’s Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA, or more commonly, just “Metro”). In fact, the LACMTA […]
This is one of the earliest plans commissioned by the City and County of Los Angeles. The consultants – Kelker, De Leuw and Co. of Chicago – were asked to create a plan to accommodate a future city population of three million. Metro’s own history archive has this to say about the project: The plan shows a number of proposed immediate and future subways: one across Hollywood to La Brea Boulevard, another from downtown to […]
