I came across this on YouTube the other day, and thought it was definitely worth sharing. It’s quite long (clocking in at well over an hour if you include the Q&A session at the end), but there’s a lot of great insight into both the history of the MBTA map, and of Ken’s personal journey designing the map over the years. Of particular interest is how the whole redesign via a crowd-sourced contest a few […]
Submitted by Nick, who writes: Hi Cameron — hope you’re staying well these days. I’m pleased to submit two maps I made to capture the North Atlantic Rail System. The system is a proposed high-speed rail network to connect New England’s major hubs. In my map, I imagine it connecting to and interacting with the existing CT Rail, MBTA Commuter Rail, and Amtrak systems throughout the region. Taken in totality, you see a much more transitable […]
I’m loving this totally bonkers diagram of lines owned, leased or controlled by the Boston & Maine RR in 1915. An increasingly complex system of line colours combined with dashes, dots and zig-zags attempts to record all the various agreements in place for line leases and trackage rights. The B&M itself is the yellow lines to the right of the map – all the other coloured lines are lines that they have some level of […]
Here’s a very handsome little map showing the lines of the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway from sometime in the late 1930s. By this point in time however, almost all of the routes were run by buses, making the name of the company somewhat ironic. Just two streetcar lines remain: Fields Corner to Quincy (with branches from there to Quincy Point or Houghs Neck), and Sullivan Square to Stoneham. The map itself is drawn in a […]
Submitted by Chris Coveney, who says: Pet MBTA peeve – there is NO reason that angle of the E-line standoff can’t match the D-line on the Green Line strip Map . (Now it will endlessly annoy you too!) Transit Maps says: It’s not just the mismatched angles of the branches that makes my eye twitch on this map, Chris. I can’t help but notice that all the stops on the “B” branch that were closed […]
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 […]
I’m quite taken by this interesting vision of Boston in an alternative future – one where the elevated rapid transit lines were never torn down, but instead upgraded to be part of a comprehensive and dense transit system. As well as these old lines (and the Watertown “A” branch of the Green line and the full length of the “E” branch!), Amy also adds in other proposed additions to the network like the Green Line […]
Submitted by Linda, who says: MBTA Red Line Order of Stations (Harvard to Ashmont) sign on old retired Red Line car, Transit Day 2017, Seashore Trolley Museum, Kennebunkport, ME. Transit Maps says: A diagram of services along a rail line is – in its most basic form – nothing more than a list of stations served, so this sign actually works quite efficiently. It’s also similar to many railroad timetables, which read down for service […]
Submitted by alr2659, who says: I found this map of the MBTA commuter rail zones in the Central Square T station on the red line in Cambridge. Strangely, this station does not have any commuter rail service, so I’m not sure why this was there at all. I guess I’ll start with the obvious part: those colors are pretty hideous, and the mud-brown color used for zone 1A does a really good job making it […]
An unused test diagram for Boston’s rapid transit network from 1991. It attempts to name every station on the branches of the Green Line, but with the unfortunate side effect of completely dominating the design. The poor old Blue Line gets shoved into the top right, and the northern part of the Orange Line doesn’t fare much better. In short, the whole thing is hideously unbalanced, and I’m very glad that this concept didn’t advance […]
