Every so often, I come across a transit map that is just so unfit for purpose that all I can do is scratch my head and ponder, “Just why?” This is one of those maps. Produced by (or on behalf of) Newark International Airport, it purports to show regional rail services that you can connect to at the airport via its AirTrain. However, it’s so poorly thought out and executed that it’s of very little […]
Posted yesterday on the Commanders’ Twitter account, here’s a Washington Metro-themed map of the team’s 2023 season. It basically just places the team’s opponents for the year on a vaguely US-shaped map using some Metro iconography and colours and calls it a day. It’s superficially fun and adorable, but part of me wishes there was more meaning behind the choice of lines – perhaps grouping teams by the division they play in or something? Still, […]
Submitted by Griffin, who says: I work upstairs in the old Grand Central and was every excited to check out the new station this morning. Spotted this new map on the wall down there, thought you might find it interesting. Transit Maps says: Oh, I do like this. Graphically strong with bright, poppy colours and making good use of the unusual display format – eight vertical screens next to each other. The map looks to […]
This map has actually been out for a while, but today – celebrating the full opening of the Central Subway – seemed like the appropriate day to post about it. Design-wise, this is very much an evolution of previous efforts (see my review of the post-COVID resumption of service map here) and thus shares many of the same features and faults. I still don’t agree with the decision to have station labels set in the […]
Here’s a map from a rarely-seen era of Portland, Oregon’s transit history – the period of time between the end of the streetcar era and the emergence of the current transit operator, TriMet in 1969. The Rose City Transit Company (with their lovely casual script logo and friendly “Rosy” nickname) operated bus service within the Portland city limits from 1956 until TriMet was formed. Under RTC’s watch, the last of Portland’s trolleybuses were phased out […]
LA Metro opened the first operating segment of the K Line today, and there’s a new map to go along with it! As we haven’t reviewed this map since 2016 (when the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica opened!), it’s high time for a new look. The first thing I noticed is how this version of the map seems to be a point-by-point correction of the perceived flaws that I noted in that 2016: the […]
Thanks to everyone on Twitter alerting me to this new map! While there’s a lot of Washington, DC content on the blog, I haven’t fully reviewed the official WMATA map since 2013, so this revision seems like a good time to look at again. First off – let’s set it out of our system, everyone… SILVER LINE! SILVER LINE! Finally extending all the way out to Dulles Airport and Ashburn, and surely opening any time […]
Over on Twitter, Peter Lloyd – the doyen of new York Subway experts – has been showcasing the many maps of Arthur Weindorf (1885–1979), a perhaps unsung contributor to the rich transit mapping history of that city. Weindorf was something of an artistic Renaissance Man – he was a cartoonist, fine art painter, and architectural engineer for the New York Public Service Commission. As well as his many drawings and maps of the subway, he […]
The NJ Transit rail map has basically looked the same – and has retained most of its faults – since I reviewed it back in the very early days of the blog [November 2011, 1.5 stars], so it came as a surprise when I discovered that that diagram has been replaced with a new geographical map this month. NJ Transit has been down this path before, with similar maps used around 20 years ago, though […]
An attractive bird’s-eye panoramic map of the lines of the Peninsular Railway (1900–1934), affectionately known as “the Pin” by locals. The railway was founded as a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad to provide connecting electric interurban service through the Santa Clara Valley from San Jose. The map itself is a fairly typical example of the genre, though the curved labels for locality names along the lines are an unusual and effective device for enclosing […]
