Readers of Transit Maps will know that I recently featured some awesome concept artwork by Massimo Vignelli for the Washington DC Metro map that was created as part of an unsuccessful bid for the map’s contract in the early 1970s. (See the posts here and here). Interestingly, the Vignelli Archives – the source of the material – made a great deal about these being “new” discoveries, unearthed for the first time in nearly 40 years. However, I’d seen many of the concepts in Peter Lloyd’s excellent 2012 book, Vignelli Transit Maps – so they’d been pulled out of the archives at least once before now. Peter’s book also contains a further set of concepts using a hexagonal grid, but only as black and white photocopies. There were two variants: one showed an initial system of two lines (left), while the other showed a hypothetical full network, based mostly on a 1967 WMATA alternatives map. The copy of this map in the Vignelli Archives has its routes traced with coloured pencil – the colours used match those in the concept maps developed.

Once I saw this planning map (left), I suddenly realised that I could use it to interpret and redraw the “missing” hexagonal concepts featured in Peter’s book. The initial system was easy enough with just two lines and easy-to-read labels, but the full system concept was reproduced at too small a size to be able to read any station labels. I suspect that most of them were just repeated placeholder names anyway, as this was only ever a conceptual mock-up. So, using the names from the planning map and the route colours from the maps in the Vignelli Archives, I set to work recreating both maps in Adobe Illustrator.

The initial system map was quick and easy. I defined the hexagonal grid and constructed the whole thing mathematically (no eyeballing!) in around half an hour or so. The names are all as found on the original concept map, except that I corrected the inexplicable use of “Tacoma Park” instead of “Takoma Park”. Oddly, most cross street-named stations are expressed as being “at”, except for “Benning & Oklahoma N.E.”, which gets an ampersand for “and” instead.

The full system diagram took a little more time, though I’d done most of the hard work with the first map. Pleasingly, all the design rules carried across to the more complex map nicely, with only one station name – McPherson Square – being forced to cross a route line. Because this map was based on a planning map that shows alternatives for routes, there are some oddities in the network, not the least of which is the presence of four separate Gallows Road stations to the left of the map. Two alternate Green Line terminus stations, a standalone station on the purple commuter rail line out to Herndon and an interchange station between the commuter rail line and the Green Line. In reality, only one of these would have ever been selected and built. There’s also two Glenmont stations on the Red Line for much the same reason. I couldn’t find a name for the station immediately to the left of the Anacostia interchange on the Yellow Line, so I gave it the modern name of Congress Heights, as the other obvious choice of Alabama Avenue was already in use.

Curiously, the diagram omits the branch of the Blue Line down to Beacon Hill. Whether this is an oversight or just because the diagram was simply a proof of concept is unknown, but it would only take a simple reconfiguration of the Yellow Line branches to include it.

These concepts are an interesting example of a truly nodal topological diagram, with little indication of distance (or sometimes even direction), and were certainly fun to recreate. The major shortcoming is that they doesn’t seem to be able to handle multiple routes along the same track (see the double labelling of stations on the Purple and Green lines from Patrick Henry Drive to West Falls Church – these are actually shared stations, but the design doesn’t allow them to be shown in the same location). Of course, this means that this mapping style would be hard-pressed to depict the modern Metro network where the Blue, Orange and Silver Lines all run concurrently across much of the map.

As always, comments (and the inevitable corrections!) are most welcome!

While copyright precludes me selling prints of these exact maps, I have applied the design principles to the modern-day Metro network, and prints of that are available for purchase in the Transit Maps store.