All posts tagged: USA

Submission – Unofficial Map: Philadelphia Transit and Points of Interest, 2020 by Marc Szarkowski

January 4, 2021
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Submitted by Marc, who says: I thought you might enjoy poring over a transit+points of interest map I recently drew of Center City Philadelphia. I’ve collected bird’s eye urban panoramas since I was a child, and I particularly enjoy panoramas that have placemaking and wayfinding value, such as those drawn by Jenni Sparks and other artists. I also find there’s no better way to learn and demystify seemingly-complex bus service than drawing it a couple […]

Historical Map: SEPTA Regional Rail Map, 1989

November 16, 2020
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Submitted by Shaul Picker, who says: I found this map of the regional rail system in Philly from this 1989 SEPTA map to be interesting. I don’t know of any other map to use octagons. This map is notable for having “temporary” shuttle buses to Newtown and West Chester (service never returned), and for noting that service to Ivy Ridge on the R6 was “temporarily discontinued.” Service also never returned here. Note proposed stations at […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Bus Map of Boulder, Colorado by Stavros R.

October 29, 2020
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Submitted by Stavros, who says: Hello, I just discovered your website, and I want to submit a bus transit map I made last year for the city of Boulder, CO. I hope you consider reviewing it on the blog and letting me know what I can change. In an effort to improve quality of service, the City of Boulder has taken over and invested heavily in a few select bus routes. As a result, the […]

Historical Map: Proposed Mass Transit System, Milwaukee WI, 1948

October 27, 2020
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Milwaukee dreaming big in the last days of rail-based mass transit in that city. I can’t find many specifics about this plan, though I do know that the City was attempting to purchase the transit lines in Milwaukee from its private operators at the time, so this study may have something to do with that. On this map, the thin black lines represent local services, probably a mix of diesel bus, “trackless trolley” and streetcar […]

Project: Denver Rail Network 2044 Spiral Map

October 4, 2020
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Future Maps, My Transit Maps, Unofficial Maps
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I originally posted this map on Twitter, but I’m also putting it on the blog for posterity, as well as to fully detail the design decisions that went into it. I’ve long thought that there’s been a design opportunity with Denver rail maps for a large circular arc for the light rail stations running south around the edge of the downtown area out of Union Station. I’ve doodled with ideas over the years, but I’ve […]

Historical Map: Proposed Personal Rapid Transit Demonstration Site, Denver, 1972

September 18, 2020
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Long before the current idea of putting Teslas in tunnels and calling it rapid transit, there was PRT, or Personal Rapid Transit. The idea was that many small carriages on guideways could take people directly to their intended destination anywhere along the route – described as a “horizontal elevator” by John Volpe, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation at the time. In the early 1970s, Denver beat out 29 other cities around the U.S. and was […]

Historical Map: Market-Frankford Line Map, Philadelphia, June 1968

September 7, 2020
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A great photograph of what looks like a wall-mounted map showing subway service in Philadelphia dated June 1968, with particular emphasis on the Market-Frankford Line. The map is interesting for quite a few reasons, not the least of which is that it would be one of the last maps of the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) era, as the PTC would be acquired by its successor, SEPTA, in September 1968, just a few months later. The […]

Historical Map: Boston and Maine Railroad and Connections, 1915

August 20, 2020
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I’m loving this totally bonkers diagram of lines owned, leased or controlled by the Boston & Maine RR in 1915. An increasingly complex system of line colours combined with dashes, dots and zig-zags attempts to record all the various agreements in place for line leases and trackage rights. The B&M itself is the yellow lines to the right of the map – all the other coloured lines are lines that they have some level of […]

Historical Map: Lines of the Denver City Tramway Company, 1904

August 19, 2020
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A great map of Denver from 1904, showing the extant lines of the Denver City Tramway Company (DCTC) in green, with planned lines in red – rapid expansion seemed to be the name of the game! The DCTC is unusual for a couple of reasons: it used the less common 3-foot-6-inch “colonial” narrow gauge for its lines instead of standard gauge, and referred to itself as a “tramway”, a term used almost nowhere else in […]

Historical Map: Proposed Telephone Despatching System of the International Railway Co, Buffalo, 1903

August 16, 2020
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This spectacular diagram from the February 28, 1903 edition of the Street Railway Journal looks for all the world like a modern schematic diagram of the International Railway Company’s lines, but there’s a bit of a twist in the tale. It’s actually a diagram of a telephonic dispatching system that the company was planning to install on its city and interurban lines, replacing a mixed telegraph/phone system. As telegraphs needed a skilled operator at every […]