All posts tagged: planning map

Historical Map: Tentative Location of Future Rapid Transit Lines, Philadelphia, 1913

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From A. Merritt Taylor’s Report of Transit Commissioner, City of Philadelphia. At the time, only the current Market-Frankford Line (complete with “Ferry Line” extension at the east end) was operating, so everything else shown here is proposed. Coincidentally, the colour scheme used seems to be almost identical to that used today, although the colours actually indicate immediacy of construction – blue for extant, orange for “immediate construction” and green for “future construction”. Source: 18brumaire/Flickr

Future Map: Proposed Extension to the Bakerloo Tube Line, London

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Very much in TfL’s house style, even as a more geographical map. Mainly interesting because it’s a major expansion of the Tube south of the Thames, which has historically been underserved by the Underground. If you live in London and want to have say in the routing of this line, then you should go and take TfL’s survey. More information on the project can be found here, where I also sourced this image from.

Historical Map: Theoretical Diagram of Proposed Transit System, St. Louis, Missouri, 1919

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Here’s a map that hyperrealcartography would love: an audacious, almost outrageous, proposal for a transit system in St. Louis drawn up by the City Plan Commission in 1919. The final proposed system shown here would have had the existing streetcars and new rapid transit lines operating side-by-side, described like this in the full proposal: “The rapid transit system is separated into two distinct systems, that for the routing of surface cars in the downtown district, […]

Historical Map: Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board – Proposals for General Scheme, 1923

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Another great planning map from almost 100 years ago. Melbourne, of course, is one city that has retained its trams over the years, rather than tearing them all out, only to eventually replace them with light rail or new trams in the modern day. trammuseum: Here’s a great map that we’ve just added to our archives today. Authored by the M&MTB’s Chief Engineer T.P. Strickland in 1923 and overlaid on a Sands & McDougall map of Metropolitan […]

Historical Map: Rapid Transit Plan by the City of Seattle, 1920

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Here’s an interesting map that shows a plan for rapid transit that city engineers envisioned for Seattle way back in 1920, almost 100 years ago! The map shows a subway running beneath Third Avenue from Virginia to Yesler, coming to the surface near the railroad stations – essentially the route followed by the present-day Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Trains going up to Capitol Hill would follow a line up Pine Street that would be alternately […]

Historical Map: “Future Growth and Improvement” Map for Lansing, Michigan, 1921

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Here’s a simply beautiful map from the 1920s, showing a comprehensive proposed future plan for the city. Along with the extensive and fastidious plans for the extension of the city’s street grid (the web of red extending outwards from the core), the map also shows existing and proposed streetcars with solid and dashed thicker red lines, respectively. The map also audaciously proposes that the main line railroads be placed onto an elevated viaduct through downtown, […]

Historical Map: The Plan of Chicago – Proposed Arrangement of Railroad Stations, 1909

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A plate from the hugely influential 1909 Plan of Chicago (also known as “the Burnham Plan” after its primary author, the renowned architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham) showing proposed amendments and additions to the railroads of the city. The thin red lines show main line railroads, which were going to be rerouted to two mega-stations to the south and west of the downtown area. To facilitate movement between these stations, an ambitious plan of subterranean […]

Historical Map: Rapid Transit for San Francisco: Monorail Alternative, 1952

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Well, thank goodness this never eventuated. Can you imagine an elevated monorail running down the length of Market Street? From a 1952 San Francisco Public Utilities Commission report entitled Rapid Transit for San Francisco: Monorail, Elevated, Subway? A Report of Possibilities. Source: Eric Fischer/Flickr

Historical Map: General Form of Rapid Transit System, Winnipeg, 1956

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Or to give it its full title: 1956 Populations and Estimated 1981 Populations of the Four Natural Sectors of Greater Winnipeg also General Form of Rapid Transit System Designed to Meet Basic Transit Needs of 1981 Notwithstanding Street Congestion. A lovely old planning map from the “Future Development of Public Transit in Greater Winnipeg” report by Norman D. Wilson. It shows the very general concept of a proposed rapid transit system along with the expected […]

Historical Map: Preferred Rapid Transit Scheme, Toronto, 1910

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A rather lovely (and somewhat prescient) figure from a report prepared by the New York engineering firm of Jacobs & Davies for the City of Toronto in 1910. It shows plans for a system of “subway streetcars” – a combination of at-grade and subterranean routes – both ahead of its time and prohibitively expensive, especially for a modest city like Toronto at the time (which had a population of just 350,000).  Source: levyrapidtransit.ca via @bgilliard