Time for another entry in the Worst Map Contest, and this one, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is right up there with the very worst.

Have we been there? No, and on the evidence of this map, I’m not sure I want to.

What we like: I will say that the labelling of the street grid along the edges is actually a very clever idea that frees up the centre of the map for the routes.

What we don’t like: First off, the quality of the map is simply terrible: JPG artefacts from over-compression, resulting in blurry type and route lines. The typography, both of the map title and the transit agency logo, is appalling and seems to have escaped from 1984 or thereabouts.

Poorly conceived, generic icons, some of which scale terribly down to the size used on the map. Look at the icon for Universities/Colleges: what is that? A palm tree?* The bus station icon fills in so badly that it’s almost impossible to work out what it actually represents.

The downtown area is terribly cramped and poorly drawn. There are dotted lines for some routes with no explanation of what that means in the key.

There’s a freakin’ rainbow gradient in the north pointer.

Our rating: Embarrassing. One star, and that’s only because I’m reserving half a star for something truly heinous. Already, after just two blog posts, Michael Champlin’s alternative map looks far more promising and definitely a project worth following as it unfolds.

*PS: Yes, I know it’s a mortarboard cap and tassel, but it shouldn’t be such hard work to see that. At the size it’s used on the map, it becomes a blobby mess and could be just about anything.

Source: Official Tulsa Transit website