All posts tagged: USA

Historical Map: Comprehensive Rapid Transit Plan for the City and County of Los Angeles, 1925

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Historical Maps

This is one of the earliest plans commissioned by the City and County of Los Angeles. The consultants – Kelker, De Leuw and Co. of Chicago – were asked to create a plan to accommodate a future city population of three million. Metro’s own history archive has this to say about the project: The plan shows a number of proposed immediate and future subways: one across Hollywood to La Brea Boulevard, another from downtown to […]

Project: Highways of the United States of America

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My Transit Maps, Prints Available

After almost two years of single-handed research, design, checking and cross-checking, I'm incredibly proud and thrilled to present my latest map project. It shows every single current and signed Interstate Highway and U.S. Highway in the contiguous 48 states in a style very similar to my previous Interstates as Subway Map and U.S. Highways as a Subway Map projects. Having made two separate maps that showed each type of road, I really had to at least try to combine them both into one map, didn't I?

Submission – Unofficial Maps: Redesigned “INAT” Metro Maps of the World by Jug Cerovic

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Unofficial Maps

Submitted by Jug , who says: I completed a set of new schematic metro maps of 12 cities using a common standard. I have tried to make easy to read, memorize and use maps but at the same time pleasant looking. Crowded centers are enlarged and specific features such as ring lines highlighted. You can see all the maps here. Transit Maps says: You all know that I love an ambitious transit mapping project, and this is […]

Submission – Historical Map: Chicago Regional Transportation Authority, 1977

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Historical Maps

Submitted by Dennis McClendon, who has previously submitted material related to transit mapping in Chicago that I’ve featured on the site. This map is a real beauty, and I definitely appreciate Dennis’ ability to talk about the technical aspects of cartography in the days before computers. We take computer-aided design almost completely for granted today – but map-making was a laborious, manually performed task back then, where a scalpel, a light box and rubylith film […]

Reader Question: What do you think of Sound Transit’s station icons?

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Questions

Question: What do you think of Sound Transit’s station icons? I find them ineffective and embarrassing. And, they want opinions for new icons for new stations! You can see the survey yourself here. Answer: I talked about Sound Transit’s station icons in this review of the Link map that’s found in ST’s timetable book back in December 2012. Like you, I’m not particularly impressed by them. I think they’re overly detailed and they reproduce terribly […]

Unofficial Map: Los Angeles Metro for the “Analogue Guide: Los Angeles”

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Unofficial Maps

Submitted by Stefan, who says: Hi Cameron, I thought I’d share the Los Angeles Metro map that we designed for the Analogue Guide Los Angeles. We always include “alternative” transit maps in our guide books, such Eddie Jabbour’s KickMap or Mark Noad’s Tubemap. In Los Angeles, given the sheer lack of maps, we designed one in-house. It would be great to hear your thoughts on it! Transit Maps says: Thanks for sharing, Stefan! This is quite a neat […]

Official Map: Boston MBTA Government Center Station Closure Bypass

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Official Maps

Submitted by Lawrence, who says: As you’ve probably heard, the MBTA is about to close Government Center at the end of service tomorrow for a 2 year reconstruction. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the detour maps the T created and have put in stations. To me (a self-confessed transit geek), they seem adequate, but all of my friends find them very confusing. This leads to a broader question: how should transit agencies map […]

Official/Future Map: Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Strip Map (now with added Green Line!)

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Future Maps, Official Maps

Submitted by Nathan Bakken, who says: Hi, I am an Urban Studies major at UMN, and while riding the Blue line today I noticed the new transit map for our light rail system. thought i would share. Transit Maps says: Looks like the Twin Cities’ Metro Transit is gearing up for the opening of the new Green Line light rail nice and early! The line – which will link the downtown areas of Minneapolis and […]

Historical Photo: Streetcars on an Inclined Railway, Cincinnati, 1904

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Miscellany

Not a map, but included because this is possibly the strangest piece of transit infrastructure I’ve ever seen. Discovered while researching the post about Cincinnati’s abandoned subway, this photo shows what happened when that city’s streetcars met the steep hills surrounding the downtown area. At this time, the streetcars were used in conjunction with four of Cincinnati’s five inclined railways: the Mount Adams Incline, Mount Auburn Incline, Bellevue Incline, and the Fairview Incline. The cars […]

Historical Map: Proposed Cincinnati Rapid Transit System with Subway, c.1912

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Historical Maps

And here’s where Cincinnati’s long, troubled history with public transit began… This map shows early route plans for a proposed rapid transit system, roughly corresponding to the modern Alternatives Analysis process. By 1917, a modification of Scheme IV as shown here was chosen and put to a public vote to procure $6 million worth of bonds for construction. The vote passed convincingly, but the United States had entered World War I just eleven days previously […]