Submitted by Leo, who says:

On September 24, the Casablanca tramway network nearly doubled in length with the opening of T3 and T4. The Casatramway network, operated by RATP, is depicted in the new map alongside the Casabusway BRT lines currently under construction. The map leaves something to be desired. I find the coastal outline to be overly-detailed, and the transfer station markers, labels, and connecting symbols are inconsistent. I’d like to see Berber text applied to station names as well.

Transit Maps says:

It’s hard to disagree with Leo’s assessment of this map – this is decidedly average work, unfortunately.

Taking the underlying base map – while there are elements on the coast that act as useful wayfinding elements, like the port area and the rocky point that the lighthouse sits on, I do find it overly detailed in comparison to the the simple forms of the routes shown. It’s almost looks like the designer has quickly traced the outline of the coast from Google Maps and called it a day – not a great look.

I’m also not enamoured with the clip art-like nature of the points of interest. They’re very flat and grey and are drawn in a few different styles – icons, simple line drawings, and “realistic” greyscale illustrations. It’s definitely worth the time to come up with a comprehensive suite of matching icons or illustrations, rather than having a hodge-podge of styles like this.

Looking at an actual map of Casablanca, it seems obvious that the designer of his diagram has tried to keep the route lines grounded in reality – as the tram lines travel down the middle of main roads for the most part – but it just ends up looking like a bit of a jumbled mess without too much thought as to how the piece looks like as a whole. There’s massive potential for some sort of radial diagram here, all centered on the point where the T1 and the T3 would intersect if their lines were extended on their current trajectories towards the top of the map. Interestingly, the angle between those two lines at that point is pretty much 36 degrees, which is a great number to work with for an interesting design (note that it’s half of the 72 degrees needed for a pentagonal design).

As for adding Berber language labels to the stations – trilingual labels are always tricky to execute well, though it would certainly be a welcome addition as I believe Standard Moroccan Berger is an official language of Morocco. The distinctive Tifinagh script can at least be seen in the map’s title block at the top left.

A few more thoughts: the “under construction” dashed lines for the new busways look rushed and lazy, like the designer just accepted the default values offered to them by Illustrator; what I can only assume are short turn-back terminus stations on the tram lines –denoted by cartouche with a white dashed border – aren’t explained anywhere in the legend; and, yes, the interchange stations are little confusing at times, especially when their “ladder” is overlaid completely on top of a route line.

Our final word: Underwhelming and unmemorable. I can’t help but think that this is a missed opportunity to create something more iconic as these new rapid transit lines come into service.

Source: Casatramways website