All posts tagged: Oregon

Photo – Official Map: Portland MAX Horizontal Strip Map

May 8, 2013
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The newest rolling stock used on Portland’s MAX light rail (Siemens S70 cars, known as “Type 4”) has enough room above the doors to display a horizontal version of the system map. Types 1 through 3 don’t have this space, and instead display an unwieldy portrait-oriented version of the map that bears little resemblance to geographical reality. Interestingly, this map is not the same as the official system map found on TriMet’s website or ticket machines (despite sharing […]

Portland, Oregon: New Motor Coaches Replace Last Street Cars, February 26, 1950

April 6, 2013
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Here’s an amazing full page ad that ran in The Oregonian on Thursday, February 23, 1950 to announce the end of an era in Portland. The last few remaining streetcar lines – to Council Crest, Willamette Heights and 23rd Avenue – were going to be replaced by “the very latest design in city transit equipment”, modern motor coaches. It’s interesting to compare the bulky, inefficient buses depicted here with their modern equivalents, especially in light […]

Unofficial Map: Portland MAX Light Rail – Super Mario 3 Style

March 29, 2013
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Here’s the latest “Mario Map” from the incredibly prolific Dave Delisle (seriously, how much cool stuff can one guy pump out?). This one is of my home town of Portland, Oregon, and Dave actually enlisted my help in checking the accuracy of the route layouts and the spelling of the station names. Considering the ridiculous length of some of the station names in the system and the limitations of the 8-bit art style, Dave’s done […]

Submission – Official Map: Josephine County Transit Bus Map, Oregon

February 19, 2013
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Submitted by Matthew Harris, who says: This is the official transit map for Grants Pass, Oregon (Josephine County) and it will supersede your German map (February 2013, 0 stars) as the worst transit map. Transit Maps says: I knew it!!! I knew as soon as I gave a score of zero, something else would appear that was even worse. A blurry, muddy, incomprehensible mess without any useful labeling at all. The inclusion of property boundaries on […]

Photo – Official Map: Portland Streetcar Strip Map

November 2, 2012
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A first look at the new in-car strip maps for Portland, Oregon’s streetcar system. With the opening of most of the eastside loop, there are now two lines: the original route is now the North/South (NS) line, and the new track is the Central (CL) line. Unfortunately, for a brand new service that the city desperately wants everyone to like and use, the design of this map is terribly dowdy and old fashioned. There’s some […]

Fantasy Map: DC Subway Map from “Leverage”

October 24, 2012
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Just good enough to pass for the real thing when fleetingly seen in the background of a TV show. The map uses real DC Metro station names, but they’re all in the wrong places. The “corporate identity” uses the colours from the old TriMet livery… which is kind of neat, seeing as the show is filmed in Portland, TriMet’s base of operations. In the show, I believe that the Washington Park MAX station (the only […]

Updated: Portland Unified Rail Map, September 2012

September 1, 2012
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Today is the end of an era in Portland, Oregon. TriMet, under budgetary stress, has done away with the much-loved Free Rail Zone, which allowed free travel by light rail and streetcar within the “Fareless Square” area of downtown Portland and the Lloyd Center. Not too long ago, Fareless Square also applied to buses in the same area, so the writing’s been on the wall for a while. At the same time, TriMet has also […]

Photo: New Portland MAX Light Rail Map!

August 29, 2012
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Reporting live from the streets of Portland, Oregon, where I’ve just noticed a new map on the ticket machine at my downtown stop. These are being rolled out in preparation for the abolition of the Free Rail Zone (and ALL fare zones!) on September 1st, and I have to say that the removal of the old multi-colored zone rings is a great improvement. The poor old streetcar still gets short shrift (now being a grey […]

Official and Future Maps: EmX BRT System, Eugene, Oregon

July 3, 2012
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One of the best things about this blog is finding people out there who — like me — aren’t always satisfied with the status quo and want to improve on the transit maps that are out there. Take these maps of the EmX* bus rapid transit system in Eugene/Springfield, Oregon. The first one is the current system map issued by the Lane Transit District. While it’s functional enough, it’s certainly not very exciting. I always […]

UPDATE: Portland MAX In-Car Map

June 1, 2012
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Just as I post about the in-car maps on Portland, Oregon’s MAX trains, I notice that TriMet has just released a new version (pardon the bad cell phone photo; I was getting off the train as I snapped it!). The new map has two important changes from the previous one: JELD-WEN Field is correctly named (instead of the old PGE Park – showing exactly why commercial names on transit maps are a Bad Idea), and […]