All posts tagged: USA

Submission – Official Map: San Diego Trolley Diagram, 2021

October 22, 2021
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Submitted by Robert, who says: I’ve always thought that San Diego’s “Trolley” map to be pretty bad, with various clashing angles, line icons and brand names (ugh) that don’t add anything (“Sycuan” is a casino, and the Blue LIne is named UC San Diego because they’re a sponsor, not because the line extension will go there). Only ONE landmark is noted, the baseball park downtown. The only geographical feature indicated is the international border, which […]

Submission – Official Map: Sound Transit Link Northgate Extension Line Map, 2021

September 14, 2021
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Submitted by Chris Bastian, who says: In anticipation of this month’s service extension to Northgate [Opening day is October 2! – Cam], Sound Transit is rolling out new maps on the Link rail system. Now tagged as the “1 Line” (Green) in anticipation of the future East Link extension. Transit Maps says: I think this our first look at Sound Transit’s new design style in the out in the wild, and it’s a pretty decent […]

Project: A Map of Electric Streetcars in Portland, Oregon, 1915

August 22, 2021
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Here’s a map that’s been a long time coming, and one that I think has been worth the wait. I’ve wanted to make a transit map of historical streetcar routes in my adopted home town of Portland, Oregon for at least five years now, but it’s always seemed like a very daunting task. The success of my historical Spokane streetcar map from earlier this year finally gave me the tools I needed to get this […]

Video: History of the MBTA’s Rapid Transit Map

May 21, 2021
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I came across this on YouTube the other day, and thought it was definitely worth sharing. It’s quite long (clocking in at well over an hour if you include the Q&A session at the end), but there’s a lot of great insight into both the history of the MBTA map, and of Ken’s personal journey designing the map over the years. Of particular interest is how the whole redesign via a crowd-sourced contest a few […]

Submission – Historical Map: M6 Bus Route Sign, New York, c. 1975

May 13, 2021
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Submitted by Shaul Picker, who says: I have a Flickr and save these images from eBay listings and elsewhere. This is a sign from the former New York City Department of Traffic showing the M6 bus route, which was eliminated in 2010. Transit Maps says: What a great little map! While the M6 may have been eliminated in 2010, this map is much older, as evidenced by both the very 1970s typography, the use of […]

Project: Diagram of Amtrak Rail Services, May 1971

April 27, 2021
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May 1, 2021 marks Amtrak’s 50th anniversary! On that day in 1971, most regional and long-distance trains in the United States either disappeared or became part of the new national rail carrier’s network (there were some exceptions to this rule, which we’ll get to later). While there are plenty of maps out there that show the general extent of Amtrak’s nascent system — including one that I made myself as part of an historical series […]

Submission – Fantasy Map: West Palm Beach LRT by Adam Susaneck

April 7, 2021
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Submitted by Adam, who says: Here’s my proposal for a low-floor LRT system in Downtown, West Palm Beach, FL (pop. ~110,000). It’s fun to think about as West Palm actually grew up as a fairly dense railroad town in the 1920s around the Seaboard and FEC stations. Wedged between two large lakes and the intercoastal waterway, the downtown is a fairly dense north-south oriented grid, with a mix of historic homes and apartment towers. The […]

Submission – Fantasy Future Map: North Atlantic Rail System by Nick Fabiani

March 31, 2021
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Submitted by Nick, who writes: Hi Cameron — hope you’re staying well these days. I’m pleased to submit two maps I made to capture the North Atlantic Rail System. The system is a proposed high-speed rail network to connect New England’s major hubs. In my map, I imagine it connecting to and interacting with the existing CT Rail, MBTA Commuter Rail, and Amtrak systems throughout the region. Taken in totality, you see a much more transitable […]

Historical Map: BART “Going Places” Advertising Supplement Poster, 1982

March 26, 2021
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Here’s a fantastic poster designed as the centre spread of an advertising supplement to various Bay Area newspapers to celebrate the first ten years of BART (1972–1982). The immediately recognisable system diagram is overlaid on top of some charming line illustrations of landmarks and attractions, with the routes of BART Express buses also indicated. It’s all very simple – the illustration looks like it’s been done with some coloured fine felt-tip pens – but it’s […]

Project: A Map of Electric Rail Service in Spokane, Washington in 1912

March 17, 2021
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Old streetcar maps often do a very poor job of actually showing how the routes ran – often just drawing an otherwise unmarked red line down the middle of roads on a standard cartographic map without any explanation of stops, loops or route names (see left for an example). Finding accurate information about the actual routing of individual lines can be a long and thankless process, so when long-time Transit Maps correspondent Karl Otterstrom tweeted […]