As Seattle continues with its expansion of light rail (East Link, University Link) and streetcar (Capitol Hill streetcar), here’s a look back at the city 99 years ago. This isn’t a transit map per se – rather, it’s a map of the city that also happens to show the transit network in no uncertain terms. The thick dark lines that traverse the city like veins are all streetcars, cable cars and interurban trains. Main line […]
The whole map is a bit of a mess, with all sorts of random angles everywhere (both route lines and station labels), but what really takes this map into the land of the bizarre are the big photos of trains superimposed over it. It’s like someone said, “Hey, there’s a bit of white space left over – what can we fill it up with? I know! How about some shots of our trains, and we’ll rotate […]
Submitted by thethingtobomb, who says: Obviously this potential US High Speed rail system has some layout problems, but the map itself is intriguing. What’s your opinion? Transit Maps says: The problem with this map is that it’s based on incredibly optimistic projections of HSR in the United States (I believe the technical term for this is a “pipe dream”). Back in 2009, there was a big push for high-speed rail and it seemed that everyone was […]
Okay, my head is officially reeling here. Try as I might, I can barely make any sense at all of this fare zone map from Austria’s Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region, the transport association that handles rail and bus transit in Eastern Austria (in effect, the Greater Vienna area). I get that there are eight concentric zone rings radiating out from Vienna, each of which is broken up into smaller zone areas, but after that… There just seems […]
This post comes about because of an email from an anonymous follower, who says: “Any idea if a unified San Francisco transit map exists somewhere out there, perhaps a la the Portland one? SF has to have one of the more confusing transit systems in the country, what with Caltrain + BART + Muni + cable cars + the F line.” As it happens, there are plenty of unofficial maps showing both just the City […]
We’ve feautured a transit map on the ceiling of a train before, so why not one on the floor as well? This map shows the suburban and regional train network surrounding Milan in Italy: Milan’s Metro system can be seen in between our two touristy friends. Reading the departures board in the background, I’d hazard a guess that this map is at the Garibaldi FS station. Awkward to use when the station is really busy, […]
Having touched briefly on the Brussels map with this previous post, I thought it was time to take a proper look at the current official map. Have we been there? Yes, back in 2003, but I walked pretty much everywhere and didn’t use the Metro/tram system. I did catch trains from Brussels to other cities in Belgium, however. What we like: The treatment of the Metro part of the system is excellent, with a nice […]
Here’s another unusual transit map — this one for the narrow-gauge, rack-assisted Zentralbahn railway in central Switzerland, serving the cities of Lucerne, Interlaken, Engelberg and points inbetween. Before a tunnel was built in 2010, the grade between Grafenort and Engelberg reached a staggering 25 percent – hard work even for a rack-assisted engine! Totally appropriately for a system that serves an alpine area, the map looks as if it would be completely at home in […]
To say I’m excited to share this map with you would be an understatement. In August, I was contacted by Carter Green, a high school student who had been inspired by my maps (especially my map of French TGV routes) and had created his own of regional rail services in and around New York City. He asked whether I would mind taking a look at it, which I did. Immediately, I was impressed with the […]
Here’s a map that has been requested quite a few times, but I’ve held off on until now. Having lived in Sydney most of my life, I think it’s difficult to be dispassionate about something I’m so familiar with… but here goes! Have we been there? You know it! What we like: Clear and easy to understand. Different types of services are denoted well, but in a nicely understated way: grey lines with coloured ticks […]
