Taken from Cambridge Seven Associates’ 1965 Manual of Guidelines and Standards. A design classic in its purest form, only slightly marred by the poor registration in the manual itself (the dots should all be centred along each route line). Source: MIT Libraries
I retweeted this hilarious (If somewhat exasperated) map of expected MBTA rail services last night, but it’s too good not to share properly on the site. Apparently, there’s been a bit of snow in Boston lately. Source: Sara Morrison/Twitter (sent my way by quite a few readers) – link no longer active
An audacious plan for expansion of rapid transit in Boston by electrifying the existing commuter rail lines. Bears quite a few similarities to this fantastic diagram from 1945, which also advocated rapid transit along railroad rights-of-way. peopleneedaplacetogo: Map from a 1972 proposal for the Boston subway lines to take over the commuter rail lines far out into suburbia, with the Green Line reaching Newburyport, the Green Line reaching Haverhill, the Red Line Fitchburg and Ayer, […]
Thanks to pretty much the entire Internet for sending me a link to Boston Magazine’s story about Maxwell Roberts’ work on alternate MBTA “T” maps. I’m not going to review them all, but I would recommend that you click through and evaluate them yourself. Personally, the rotated hexalinear version shown above is my favourite.* What I’m interested in talking about is Roberts’ approach to transit map design. Whereas most designers will automatically gravitate to a […]
Submitted by Miles Taylor, who says: Here’s a pretty awful map I found of the MWRTA bus system in Framingham, MA. I can’t make heads or tails of these crazy routes. Transit Maps says: Yeah… this is pretty bad. It’s pretty much anyone’s guess as to what’s going on at the northwestern end of the red Route 7, as it looks like the bus just loops around aimlessly until it finds a way back east. […]
An old photo (taken in 2005 at Charles/MGH station according to the metadata over on Flickr), but even then the spider map was out of date. Love the red wall for the Red Line. Source: quicklyfailing/Flickr
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 […]
Submitted by emotingviamemes, who says: This is an old Boston Elevated Railway Company map from a user guide I purchased at the wonderful Ward Maps store in Cambridge, MA. It’s a lovely relic of its time! The rest of the guide gives transit directions to landmarks and points of interest. I’m not exactly sure why the modern day Blue and Red Lines are the same color on here, unless some color had faded with age. […]
First sightings are coming in of Boston’s new rapid transit map being deployed on trains and stations, and prints are also available from MBTAgifts.com. For now, the map on the actual MBTA website is still the previous version. The blurb about the map on MBTAgifts.com says: The 2014 MBTA rapid transit map was the result of an international competition for designs. This map is based on the winning submission and has been complete[ly] redrawn and […]
Submitted by Lawrence, who says: As you’ve probably heard, the MBTA is about to close Government Center at the end of service tomorrow for a 2 year reconstruction. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the detour maps the T created and have put in stations. To me (a self-confessed transit geek), they seem adequate, but all of my friends find them very confusing. This leads to a broader question: how should transit agencies map […]
