Taking transit map wall art to the next level is this piece by Ian Reynolds, an electrical engineer and computer science student at MIT. Not only does it light up and look cool, but it actually queries the MBTA API to show the real-time position of trains on the system. Very awesome. As Ian himself describes it over on Reddit, “The MBTA is a big part of life in Boston, and I built this as sort […]
Reader Chris Bastian notes that the 7 Line’s extension to 34th Street-Hudson Yards (that opened today!) has been added to MTA’s Vignelli-style “Weekender” map. I’ll say that it looks pretty good, but Vignelli’s famous “one dot equals one stop” principle seems to have been broken at Times Sq/42nd and Grand Central/42nd, where one dot now seems to serve both the “S” and the “7″. Compare the “S” to the “L”, which has its own terminus dot at the 14th Av/8th […]
the-nycta-project: “New Subway Routes” Map Possibly 1967? Yes, this is the 1967 “New Subway Routes” map produced by the New York Transit Authority, designer unknown. The diagram was produced to show only the eight routes that had been changed with the opening of the tunnel under Chrystie Street. It’s an interesting piece because it was produced some three years before even the first draft Unimark/Massimo Vignelli diagram, but has seemingly been influenced by his approach to […]
Sent my way by Andy Woodruff, this map is all kinds of wrong. As it’s from around 2008, it shows an older configuration of the Silver Line routes, with an SL3 route going to City Point. However, the underlying base map hasn’t been adjusted to accommodate the diagram, so SL2 and SL3 appear to take you to destinations deep in the outer reaches of Boston Harbor, while Kendall/MIT is located in the middle of the […]
“The ‘T’: One of Boston’s Last Great Bargains” proclaims this neat little pop-arty pocket map cover. Five of the six colours used in the design make sense (representing the four lines of the “T” plus purple for commuter rail), but what’s the yellow for? Making up the numbers in the days before the Silver Line, it seems. EDIT: My readers are awesome! Thanks to those who have pointed out that yellow was (and still kind of […]
Submitted by peopleneedaplacetogo, who says: This, from 1979, is the first published version of the now-familiar Michael Hertz Associates-designed New York Subway map, which replaced the (in)famous diagrammatic Vignelli map of the early 1970s. While most of the design decisions are still reflected in the subway map today, it’s interesting to see what’s changed over the intervening 35 years. The 1979 map is somewhat less geographically distorted, the distinction between express and local services is […]
“This Red Line train is bound for Chard of Many Colors via Black Beans”. Taken at the Trader Joe’s West Newton store… mostly recognisable as the MBTA “T” map, but with a few additions and exclusions. The Silver Line is now a light shade of blue and promises wild salmon, while the commuter rail lines now seem to sprout randomly from the end of “T” lines in a variety of different colours. Nice hand lettering, though! Side […]
Really nice work here. What I love most is that these aren’t just neon copies of the official maps (that’s London above, not really looking like Beck’s map at all) but are the artist’s own interpretation of each system. Click on the source attribution below to go see all the other systems on the designer’s website – he’s made installations based on many cities, including Paris, New York, Tokyo and others. Side note: shame on […]
Sent my way by quite a few people now! Taken from a new DLC map set inside a subway station and the surrounding tracks, we have quite the array of maps! Here we have a map for the whole system, a strip map for the Orange Line, and even a locality map! The main subway map itself is pretty non-descript and generic – not a lot to say about this. The strip map, however, is […]
I am so happy that this serendipitous photograph exists. Source: Mark Verbos/Flickr
