Submitted by Xuan, who says: Hey Cameron, I am wondering if you’d be interested in reviewing this unofficial subway map of my hometown – Beijing. The author is Lyt, aka “lighthunter”. I think his version is 100,000 times better than the official map. I think he deserves an ovation. Although China now has the longest subway mileage in the world, most Chinese transit maps are hideous. That’s why I figure this map could be a […]
Submitted by opspe, who says: This is my concept for what an integrated regional inter-city rail network in the Northwest could look like, if things had developed that way. All there is now (regionally) is Cascades, which I ride all the time, but it’s still rather limited. I decided to include the local commuter rail lines (WES, Sounder, WCE) too. I also decided to beef up CalTrans a bit – they don’t actually serve Redding, although it’s […]
Submitted by Chris Bastian. An old, out-of-date wall map of the Rome–Pantano railway. Until 2008, the line ran from the Roma Termini station out to Pantano, a suburb to the east of Rome. Since then, the line has been cut back to Giardinetti (the station near the ring road shown on this map), as the eastern portion of the line is being converted into part of the new Metro Line 3. Also of note is […]
Submitted by Bernie, whose excellent map of Singapore (Nov. 2013, 3.5 stars) has already been featured on this site. Bernie says: Hi Cameron, I saw your post about the new Victorian Rail Network concept map (April 2014, 3.5 stars) by PTV and was very impressed – it’s quite a quantum leap forward from the existing map. I thought I’d have a go at further redefining the map, but for the Melbourne Metro network only. (I […]
Submitted by criacow, who says: Check out this wayfinding sign at St. George Station in the TTC subway here in Toronto. (My blurry photo, but TTC signage.) Up is north, but *left* is *east*—they flipped on an axis rather than rotating—and ‘eastbound’ isn’t noted anywhere. I’ve lived here for years and even I was confused by this until I looked at the specific station names! Transit Maps says: I’ll agree that this does look odd […]
Let’s continue our recent look at small- to medium-sized German bus networks with this network map from Schwäbisch Gmünd in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, submitted by Bert. I find this map interesting, because it really shouldn’t work as well as it does. While simplified, there doesn’t seem to be any real logic or unifying design principles behind the angles used for the route lines: they just seem to be drawn to make the routes fit together. Despite that, the […]
Man, this map sure manages to make depicting one line a lot of hard work. Despite the simple diagrammatic style, stations are still cramped together so close towards the top of the map that the labels have to be randomly placed on either side of the route line, rather than being spaced far enough apart to place them all neatly on one side. The map doesn’t give enough geographical context to justify this “accurate” placement […]
Thomas, who is a ninth-grader (i.e., he’s just 14 or 15 years old), says: Sydney, my home town, has around 4.7 million people and already has a commuter rail network, however, the city is growing, and the network doesn’t cover everything, so I have augmented the network in many places, as well as showing how it could grow into the currently undeveloped far south- and north-west (they are generally the places where the stations have […]
Submitted by Hubert at the same time as the awful Marburg map. Of this map, Hubert says: Check out the intertwined lines in the city center! I find this approach very interesting and useful and I would really like to hear your thoughts about this. Transit Maps says: The intertwined (or “candy-striped”) lines in the city centre are definitely the most interesting thing about this map. The rest of it is a competent, if unexciting, […]
Submitted by Hubert, who says: You really should review more ugly, messed up maps as they serve as deterrent examples. This eyesore of a map is what made me aware of the fact that transit map design is not as easy as it seems. I once sat in line 7 and it took me twenty minutes to figure out whether the bus served the Elisabethkirche Station in my direction of travel. This is literally the […]
