All posts tagged: rapid transit

Submission – Fantasy Map: Rapid Mass Transit of a Future Christchurch by Sam van der Weerden

October 30, 2017
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Submitted by Sam, who says: After a year and a bit of following this blog I’ve finally decided to make my own map! As you may know, the city of Christchurch, NZ is currently going through a massive rebuilding effort following the quakes of 2010 and 2011. There are constant conversations around what to do with the future of the city’s transport network, with talks of trains appearing here and there in media (and most […]

Photo: Vintage MBTA Red Line Order of Stations Sign

October 22, 2017
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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 […]

Historical Map: Subway-Surface Lines, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1978

September 22, 2017
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Here’s a great late-1970s diagram that I haven’t seen before of Philadelphia’s subway-surface trolley lines. From the looks of things, this might well have been a strip map within the trolley cars themselves. The subway-surface lines are given full prominence here, with the rest of Philly’s rapid transit rail system represented by very thin route lines mainly confined to the right third of the map. The five trolley routes are treated very diagrammatically, each following […]

Historical Map: Test MBTA Rapid Transit Map, 1991

August 24, 2017
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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 […]

Historical Map: 1967 San Francisco Muni Rapid Transit Plan

June 23, 2017
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I’m ever so slightly in love with this simple little map showing proposed rapid transit lines in San Francisco. There’s some lovely texture for the parkland, a nice vignetted effect for the coastline, and some great mid-century typography as well – all rather delightful!  There’s a great information hierarchy as well, with buses being thin light blue lines, then trolley buses slightly thicker brown lines. Cable cars are shown by thin black lines that still […]

Submission – Fantasy Map: Split Rapid Railway, Croatia by Voystok

March 3, 2017
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Submitted by Voystok, who says: Here’s my fantasy map for the non-existent rapid transit system of Split, Croatia! I made this as a practice project in Illustrator as I’m preparing a portfolio for a college application. The geography is largely distorted and the city lines (M1 and M2) are very disproportionate to the other lines (M3 and M4) which are suburban. I hope one day this city will have a transit system like this. Transit […]

Historical Map: Proposed Detroit Rapid Transit System, c. 1920

November 14, 2016
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A handsome aerial “birds-eye” rendering of a proposed elevated rapid transit system linking Detroit with Royal Oak, Birmingham, Pontiac and Rochester (as well as the Ford Motor Company plant and blast furnaces). The system was first proposed in 1915, with a working scale model presented to the Detroit city council (photo).  But by 1922, the company was still searching for land on which to erect one mile of test track for their unusual proprietary track system, […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: New York Subway and Bus “Bullet Map” by Anthony Denaro

November 7, 2016
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Submitted by Anthony, who says: You reviewed my map of the Long Island Rail Road a few years ago. Your critiques and your blog have helped me in pushing forward on my current project, a unified Subway and Bus Map, I’m calling it the Bullet Map, named after the nickname for the circle subway route indicators. I launched it a month ago with a Medium post explaining methodology.  What do you think of it? Transit Maps says: Anthony’s actually been keeping […]

Unofficial Map: Miami-Dade Metrorail and Metromover by Peter Dovak

October 15, 2016
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I love it when people take my criticism of a map and use it as inspiration to come up with an alternative solution. Having seen my recent review of the new official map (October 2016, 1.5 stars), Peter took it upon himself to redesign it – and quickly, taking less than a day to come up with his version.  Peter obviously agreed with a lot of my concerns about the official map, because he’s addressed […]

Submission – Official Map: Miami-Dade Metrorail Map, 2016

October 13, 2016
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Submitted by lukasmaps, who says: I think I’m gonna hurl… Shows buses, but NOT the Metromover? Come on. Transit Maps says: Well, it at least shows the stations that you can transfer to the Metromover at (all two of them), so it’s kind of on par with the buses – no actual bus routes are shown, just a list of numbers at each station. Showing the Metromover on this map is problematic because of the disparate […]