I found out about this awesome map from a tweet from Vanshnookenraggen (otherwise known as Andrew Lynch) just the other day. Originally, I was just going to post the black and white map from the 1920 New York Times article that the original blog post references, but then I realised that the image on the blog linked to a super high resolution PDF of the map. As I found the map in the newspaper article […]
Here’s a photo taken in 2011 of a fantastic old and faded sign at the Readville MBTA station in Massachusetts. As the original poster on Flickr points out, trains no longer run from Readville to Attleboro along the Providence/Stoughton Line: trains on that line pass through Readville without stopping. Of course, the fact that the sign refers to the last outbound station as “Attleboro” is an anachronism within an anachronism, as the map shows Providence, Rhode […]
As Seattle continues with its expansion of light rail (East Link, University Link) and streetcar (Capitol Hill streetcar), here’s a look back at the city 99 years ago. This isn’t a transit map per se – rather, it’s a map of the city that also happens to show the transit network in no uncertain terms. The thick dark lines that traverse the city like veins are all streetcars, cable cars and interurban trains. Main line […]
As a graphic designer with a keen interest in transit maps and a fairly thorough knowledge of their history and usage, I thought I had a decent understanding of Massimo Vignelli’s diagrammatic version of the New York Subway map, which was used from 1972 to 1979. This outstanding book has proved me almost completely and utterly wrong. So much of what we think we know about the Vignelli map is simply hearsay and legend, repeated […]
Here’s the latest “Mario Map” from the incredibly prolific Dave Delisle (seriously, how much cool stuff can one guy pump out?). This one is of my home town of Portland, Oregon, and Dave actually enlisted my help in checking the accuracy of the route layouts and the spelling of the station names. Considering the ridiculous length of some of the station names in the system and the limitations of the 8-bit art style, Dave’s done […]
Submitted by Peter, who says: Hello! I’m very much new to Illustrator, but I have a love of transit and a budding love of graphic design, and reading your wonderful blog has inspired me to try and pick it up. For practice, I tried turning one of my childhood daydreams into reality — a hypothetical map for a light rail system for my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville is a notoriously anti-transit town with just […]
Drawn and submitted by Sam, who says: Pacific Electric: Challenge Accepted! Cameron, When I read your disappointment on the uselessness of that beautiful map of the Pacific Electric at its peak in 1917 (not 1920), I wondered if it was possible to create a simplified London Underground-style map. With over a hundred routes it seemed impossible, but after several attempts, this was my end result. Any further information is on the map itself. Transit Maps […]
Great little slice of history here. The photographer on Flickr seems to recall the cost of a token as being 60 cents at the time; Wikipedia prices it at $1.15. As a graphic designer, all I can see is the terrible registration in the (cheap) printing – look at the huge yellow halo bleeding out to the right of the green and red printed areas. (In four-colour printing, green is made from combining cyan and […]
Fantasy Map: Baltimore Subway Restaurants as Subway Lines Is it scary that this actually looks incredibly plausible? There’s even a Circle Line that mirrors the beltway rather nicely. Great fun! Map by Chris Nelson. (Source: @everydayelk/Twitter)
Long time readers will be aware of my low opinion of the Washington DC Metro Rail map – here’s a fairly scathing review of the “Rush+” map (March 2012, 2.5 stars) to refresh your memory. It looks like WMATA is preparing for the opening of the Silver Line and has put a draft version of a new map up for comments. According to the blurb there, the route lines are now thinner and station names […]
