Submission – Unofficial Map: Improved Cercanías Madrid Map by Jace

August 30, 2024
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Submitted by Jace, who says:

A while ago I saw your review of the Cercanías Madrid [our 2022 review is here – Cam], and, as a regular user of the system, I too find the map quite bad: Uneven distances between lines, mismatched fonts in the route bullets, and overall lack of quality. So, I took it upon myself to make a better map.

I’ve centered it around the central loop of track, and I’ve switched around some lines (Namely the C-7 in the northwest and the C-3 and C-4) to avoid unnecessary crossings. I’ve made the CIVIS service, which is given little to no attention in the official map, into its own line and added a notice stating that it has limited service. Also, the key has been simplified, and I’ve added some notes regarding the service patterns (Like the C-5 sometimes terminating at Fuenlabrada instead of Humanes and the switch between C-1 and C-7 at Príncipe Pío). Finally, I’ve added notices where some trains continue past a terminus.

I really hope you like it, and I’m looking forward to your comment on how to improve it.

Transit Maps says:

I have really mixed feelings about this diagram. On one hand, the concept behind the reworking and the technical quality of the draftsmanship are both top notch – making two mirrored loops around the central spine works incredibly well and is a a fantastic example of finding a pattern and making it a strong visual motif – but on the other hand, I just think everything is just too lightweight to hold together as a cohesive piece of design.

I really do think that there’s a point where route lines can be too thin to be read and followed easily, and I think this diagram has crossed that line. These thin lines in turn create incredibly small station dots which can be hard to find, especially on the yellow C-5 line. And these are paired with very small, lightweight station names… and then hairline zone boundaries… it just all compounds into something that doesn’t feel grounded or solid, like it’s all going to float away on the next puff of wind. Note that the larger labels for the terminus/interchange station work much better – big and bold enough to feel important, and large enough to be read at a distance. The other labels don’t need to be as bold as these, but they should be much closer in size to them than what they are now – you really shouldn’t ever have labels that are smaller than their supporting icons.

Some other areas to consider – I was slightly surprised to see that the right-hand loop is slightly smaller from top to bottom that the left one: making them exact mirrors of each other seems like the obvious thing to do to me. Visually, they do look pretty similar to the naked eye, so maybe this is a case of eyeballing it to look “right.” However, the whole diagram is obviously positioned too far to the right on the page and should all be moved to the left to centre it properly.

Finally, I think there’s room to clean up and rework the legend to use the top of the page more effectively without leaving that big empty space to the right. C-5 and C-7 could be moved to the last column to even things out – six route lines in each column. This would also allow a bit more vertical space between each entry, making each one a discrete visual element. Lastly, the columns themselves could be wider to fill in that empty space, maybe even to a point where each entry only uses one line instead of sometimes needing two? Arguably, the legend is just as important as the diagram itself, so it’s worth taking the time to really make it look good.

Our final word: A killer concept that puts the official map to shame. It needs some weight added to its bones to make it truly useful and more easily legible. Definitely an idea worth refining!

Submission – Unofficial Map: Arendal Region Transit Map, Norway by Hazael

August 27, 2024
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Hi! I made this transit diagram myself. I saw there was no “real” map with all the stations for the region of Arendal in Norway, so I decided to do this project. I would love to read your comments and criticisms!

Transit Maps says:

There’s a lot to like about this diagram – a nice pseudo-isometric effect with clean and simplified geography, an excellently-executed magnified inset overview of the Arendal bus terminal, and a comprehensive legend that fills the “dead” space of the map nicely. That said, I think there’s some room for improvement in a couple of areas:

First, the rush hour only services are too small and hard to make out compared to the other frequencies. The line used to depict them is too thin to follow easily, the station markers are hard to see, and the type used to label them is very small. Generally, I don’t like to use too many different type sizes on a map, preferring to let the weight of the font do the work for me: bold versus regular, etc. I feel that different type sizes can create an unbalanced design, with some labels becoming hard to read and others LITERALLY SHOUTING AT YOU. In this instance, it also leads to oddities like Bjorbekk loudly proclaiming that it’s a “main stop” when its next to two tiny little station markers, one of which is almost invisible. There’s a visual disconnect between the elements that creates confusion for the reader.

The diagram also feels a little unfinished around the edges. Where do the lines that leave the map go? Why do the lines heading off to the top right corner just end? Arrowheads and “To:” labels would be really helpful here.

Our final word: The framework is excellent, the information hierarchy just needs a bit more attention. Perhaps look at different ways to depict those rush hour only services – generally, they tend to be frequent but only run for limited periods, so perhaps a thicker dashed or cased line could work?

Submission – Historical Map: Relief Map of Street Railway System in Pittsburgh and Vicinity, 1910

August 16, 2024
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Submitted by Marc, who says:

Hi ! I enjoy the historical maps, especially. Here’s my all-time favorite historical map — a hand-made relief map of the Pittsburgh streetcar system, from 1910.

Transit Maps says:

Oh, I just love this, Marc! This fantastic map was included as part of a “Report on the Pittsburgh Transportation Problem” submitted to the mayor of Pittsburgh, William A. Magee, by consulting engineer Bion J. Arnold in December 1910, and the craftsmanship is altogether something wonderful. The map – or more precisely, a photograph of a superb three-dimensional model – simply shows the elevation along the routes of Pittsburgh’s street railways, with some spot heights labelled at important points. Altogether, it neatly and beautifully illustrates the biggest problem facing street railway transportation in Pittsburgh – the mountainous terrain surrounding the downtown core. The benefit provided by the Mount Washington tunnel – opened in 1904 and still in use by transit today – is noted in the narrative underneath the photograph of the map. If you look closely, you can see that some of the lines shown here still exist as part of Pittsburgh’s light rail system even today. The location of all the car barns, power houses and electrical substations are also shown on the map, though many of them are obscured in his photograph of the model.

The map does remind me of two other items in the Transit Maps archives. First, this astonishing relief map of the Pacific Electric streetcar system in and around Los Angeles in 1920. Like this map, a photograph was taken of a physical model, although in this case, the route lines were added to a print of that photograph and hand-tinted red. And then there’s this diagram from Frankfurt in 1913, which looks very similar to this map, but uses the relief along each line to indicate the number of passengers in that segment of track.

Here’s the text from underneath the map, reproduced for easy reading:

This is a photographic reproduction of a model showing both the location and elevation of the various routes of comprising the street railway tracks of the Pittsburgh Railway Company. The map is laid out on a horizontal scale of 2000 feet to the inch, and the elevations on a vertical scale of 200 feet to the inch (measured above normal river level). From this photograph the elevations can only be judged in perspective. It will, however, be apparent at a glance that transportation over the streets of Pittsburgh is accomplished with unusual difficulties. As the great majority of passenger traffic centers in the low lying “Point District,” nearly every line reaching the suburbs is obliged to ascend heavy grades, with the exception of the Second Avenue line to Homestead, the Penn Avenue and Butler Street line to Aspinwall, and the West Carson Street line to McKees Rocks. Pittsburgh’s most direct line to the east end – via Center Avenue – is handicapped by one of the worst hills, likewise the Federal Street-Perrysville Avenue line to Riverview Park District. The low level tunnel under Mt. Washington has evidently been the greatest benefit in reaching the South Hills suburban district and providing convenient interurban connections to the towns South of Pittsburgh.

Our final word: Phenomenal! I can’t even imagine the amount of time it took to conceive, design and fabricate this model – craftsmanship at its best!

Source: Hathitrust.org (includes the complete report if you fancy a read!)

Submission – BART “Heat Map” by Harsha Devulapalli

August 13, 2024
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Submitted by Harsha, who says:

I’ve been a big fan of your blog for over a decade. Recently, I had the opportunity to replicate the BART transit map for a data visualization in a story I wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle. I would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Transit Maps says:

First off, it’s great to see a transit map-related infographic from a newspaper graphics team! As an interesting and attention-grabbing way to present data, this is mostly succeeding, I think. Viewers of this map (and readers of the accompanying article in the Chronicle) in the Bay Area would almost certainly be familiar with the BART diagram, allowing them to quickly relate the data shown to their mental image of the system and the Bay Area as a whole.

That said, much the same information could be obtained from a standard temperature map of the area like you’d see on the evening news (see left). This is especially true when you consider the methodology of coming up with the temperatures as shown – the Chronicle article makes it clear that the temperatures are obtained by a model that uses a conglomeration of different sources for each general area with “computed values… for areas about 1.5 miles in length and width.” So, if you were thinking that the temperatures were actually recorded at each station on the BART system, you’d be wrong. This generalised model probably also doesn’t take into account the fact that many of the inner stations are underground, which would almost certainly further affect the temperature at those stations.

So what we really have here is a dataset of general temperatures in the Bay Area which is simply using the BART diagram as the medium for conveying that information, rather than a diagram of actual temperatures within the BART system itself – which may be what readers are expecting given the context. Finally, the general conclusions from the data – that it’s cooler nearer the coast and San Francisco’s well-known marine layer, and hotter inland away from that influence – aren’t exactly surprising.

Design-wise, the graphic obviously draws its cues from the official BART diagram, which helps add familiarity for the viewer. An interesting side-effect of showing all the separate route lines – even though it doesn’t really add useful information in this context apart from being familiar – is that the areas where three or four route lines run concurrently get more “surface area” for their colours to show, so they tend to be more visually dominant. The eye is drawn to that big teal/green area in San Francisco and kind of skips over the hottest part out to Antioch, which only gets a single line’s width worth of colour. An alternative approach might be to just have one slightly thicker line for all the branches rather than retaining all of the separate routes, though this does sacrifice some of that instant recognition.

The diverging colour palette is very appropriate for the type of data being shown and looks great, especially when used as gradients along the route lines. Perhaps it could be a little more optimised for colour-blind users – the middle values all look pretty similar in my simulations – but the general trend of cooler colours to the left and warmer colours to the right does a decent job, really. Some people might also take issue with the legend being broken up into discrete values when the data on the map is a continuous gradient, but it works for me as I think you can quickly understand the data range better this way.

Lastly, a little more care with the labelling of stations would have been good. The labels from Civic Center up to Embarcadero get progressively further and further way from their corresponding stations, and there’s more than a few inconsistencies like that across the graphic.

Our final word: A fun and memorable way to present information in a digestible, bite-sized chunk, which is the hallmark of good newspaper graphics. However, the graphic might not be representing exactly what people are expecting given the context of using the BART diagram to deliver the information.

Source: @HarshaReports/Twitter

Submission – Fantasy Map: New York Regional Rail Concept by James G

August 5, 2024
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Submitted by James, who says:

I created this map based on various concepts (mainly the work of Alon Levy) for through-running regional rail in the New York region. This network would integrate all of the current commuter rail networks, increasing frequencies to metro-like levels, so I thought a metro-like diagrammatic map would be a good fit. The services are grouped by their routes through the core to organize the many branches into six line identities. I’ve also shown very rudimentary connections to PATH, HBLR, Newark Light Rail, and the MTA Subway and future IBX as simple dots colored by the subway trunk color to save on space and information density. Interested to hear your take on my little design project, and excited to share it with the wider transit map community.

Transit Maps says:

Oh my, this is just full of buttery goodness! Polished, clean, balanced, visually strong, an excellent legend… this one has it all. And I love the idea of combining all of New York’s myriad and varied commuter rail agencies into one cohesive, through-running service.

Despite being what looks like a hexadecalinear diagram – or a staggering sixteen possible directions for route lines to go – James has exercised considerable restraint and given more emphasis to certain angles to give the diagram an excellent compositional framework – Long Island, in particular, looks very striking. Remember, just because you have a lot of choices doesn’t mean you have to use them all!

If there’s perhaps one overarching flaw with this diagram, it’s that it is perhaps just a little too subtle in places. Borough and county labels are too small to be used for quick geographical orientation, similarly the route numbers placed along the lines are really too small to be used for wayfinding, and the thin dark stroke that James puts on each route line to indicate the “core” section is almost invisible. Subtle, classy design is great – I love James’ masterful deployment of drop shadows and outer glows throughout the diagram – but information hierarchy and usability sometimes requires certain elements to draw more attention to themselves.

Our final word: Looks gorgeous, and presents a compelling vision of a better commuter rail future in New York. Has some information hierarchy and element size issues.

Submission – Official Map: GoBus Ohio, 2024

August 2, 2024
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Submitted by Leo, who says:

The state-supported GoBus system in Ohio has a somewhat strange route scheme (e.g. no direct route from Columbus to Cleveland, or Columbus to Cincinnati via Dayton) but their map, despite being overall fairly poor, makes some interesting stylistic choices. The treatment of destinations served by some trips by showing each trip as an individual line, as well as of major cities/hubs where multiple stops are often made, is certainly interesting. Curious to hear your thoughts!

Transit Maps says:

While this simple little map isn’t going to win any awards, Leo is right when he says it has some interest. Encoding the number of trips each route makes on a daily basis into the map itself is pretty clever, and allows you to quickly see that Route A makes three (round-trip) journeys a day from Columbus to Athens, but only one of them continues on to also serve Parkersburg, for example. It can also be seen that the two trips between Parkersburg and Cleveland have distinctly different stopping patterns.

The rings around the terminal stops do seem to serve a purpose by indicating stops in the periphery of the main centres, but perhaps it’s a little confusing at Wooster, where it makes it look like the route loops around the city and returns back to Columbus by a different route (in reality, there’s two different round-trip routes that serve different towns on the way).

Our final word: Simple and somewhat generic in style, but has an interesting concept that encodes frequency and route variations directly into the map. Interesting!

Source: GoBus Ohio website

Submission – Official Map: Greater Copenhagen Rail Map, 2024

July 31, 2024
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Submitted by Jakob, who says:

The M4 branch extension to Copenhagen South has just opened, and with it, a much improved map compared to 2019 [My review of the 2019 map can be found here – Cam]. The Circle Line is now more spacious, junctions are labeled more clearly, and metro lines have a strikethrough to better distinguish them from similarly coloured S-train lines (although the colours across the system should be aligned). Now, Copenhagen can look forward to its first light rail line in the Ring 3 corridor next year, a northern harbour extension of the M4, as well as a new circle line (M5) in the 2030s.

Transit Maps says:

A definite improvement over the previous iteration, simply because they’ve taken the time to redraw everything instead of just trying to shoehorn the circular M3 line into a pre-existing diagram. Everything feels a lot more considered and balanced this time around, as seen by the fact that no labels sit on top of route lines any more. Too many labels are angled for my liking: there seems to be plenty of room to straighten a lot of them out.

Swapping the background colours so the land is white and the water grey also helps a lot, increasing the contrast between the foreground and background elements nicely. Changing the water colour to a light blue instead of grey could perhaps enliven the diagram a bit, as the large flat area of grey seems a bit sterile. That said, the colour palette for the lines is rather gorgeous and I think they’ve hit the right balance this time around. The thin inner stroke on the Metro lines does give some level of mode differentiation without having to change any line colours, so I guess it does its job in the end.

The way the dark grey main line train route line disappears underneath the light blue “A” line on its way to Copenhagen Central seems like cheating, but again, does the job of getting where it needs to be without disrupting the unified rainbow curve of the more important S-Tog lines above it. Functional, if not entirely aesthetically pleasing.

Our final word: Shows the importance of taking the time to re-evaluate previous design decisions and perhaps even completely redoing things to come up with a much-improved final product.

Source: DOT website

Historical Map: Diagram of Passenger Stations in the Sydney Metropolitan Area, 1928

July 29, 2024
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There’s a lot to like about this simple little track diagram of Sydney’s rail system from 1928. There’s a lot of different angles – both with route lines and station labels – but it still manages to hang together as a coherent whole. A big part of that is the dead straight Western line running all the way across the canvas from Central to Penrith, which provides that vital design axis that good diagrams almost always have. The way it breaks this line up in to the Main line, Suburban Line and Local Line by track pairs is wonderful, and does more to explain why trains terminate at Homebush even today than any other Sydney map I’ve ever seen.

Note the inclusion of the Rogan’s Hill line from Westmead, a short-lived line that only operated from 1919 to 1932. As the map pre-dates the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the North Shore line ends at the old Milsons Point railway station, where riders would transfer to a ferry to Circular Quay. Waverton station bears its original name of “Bay Road”, and the line across the harbour via North Sydney and Kirribilli is shown as under construction, as is much of the City Circle, as well as the East Hills line, which had commenced construction in 1927. Most intriguingly, a connecting branch between St. Leonards and Epping is shown as under construction, decades before the line from Chatswood to Epping (now upgraded to metro standards) became a reality. Apparently, this line was part of John Bradfield’s plan for the railways and is the reason why Epping’s centre track once terminated at the station with platforms on both sides.

Our final word: Really rather nicely done! Neat, compact and drawn to a high standard of draughtsmanship. Also a nice little historical record.

Historical Map: Union Pacific Annual Report Map, 1980

July 26, 2024
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Here’s an absolutely cracking diagrammatic map that appeared as a fold-out sheet in Union Pacific annual reports from about 1978 through 1981, maybe slightly longer. I first saw this as a photograph of a partial part of the map, but it didn’t take me too long to find the whole thing on the internet via the Union Pacific Historical Society’s website.

The map features a rigid and consistent use of a 30-degree angle, some neat abstract icons, nice differentiation between single- and double-track sections of line, and a clear and comprehensive legend. And it all looks great in bright colours reversed out of a black background: very late 1970s corporate design! What’s not to love?

Of course, the nature of the Union Pacific network means the eastern half of the map looks a bit empty, but there’s not a lot that could have been done about that. And there’s one error on the West Coast that I noticed and seems to have persisted through a few iterations of the map (though it was correct in the photo I first saw) – the positions of Aberdeen and Hoquiam in Washington state are reversed.

Our final word: A fantastic piece of late-1970s corporate design. It’s no wonder they used this beauty for a few years!

Source: Union Pacific Historical Society (PDF link)

What I’m Up To and the Future of the Blog

July 6, 2024
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Hi, everyone – it’s been a while! Quite a few people have written in lately wondering why I haven’t updated the blog in a while, so I thought I should address that. Firstly, for those that were concerned something was wrong, I’d like to reassure you that I’m a-okay and everything is fine. I’ve just been engrossed in a new project, and as a result, the blog has gone into a bit of a hiatus – there’s only so many hours in the day, after all! To be honest, the blog has already succeeded well beyond my wildest dreams and contains a formidable archive of maps, reviews and tips and techniques, so I’m okay with it taking a little break.

So, what is this all-consuming project, you might ask? Basically, I’m writing a fully-comprehensive research wiki on the history of streetcars and electric interurbans in my adopted home town of Portland, Oregon. As many of you know, it’s a subject very near to my heart (with multiple maps made on the subject!), and it’s something I’m feeling very inspired about at the moment. Information on this subject is scattered about the internet on various sites (which aren’t always accurate), or is hidden away in lots of separate books, so I’m trying to create a comprehensive archive of verified primary-source information (mainly historical newspaper articles) to give definitive dates and details for all the streetcar companies, lines, infrastructure, and prominent people involved. The work is mainly trawling newspaper databases for relevant articles and transcribing and tagging them in a fully-searchable database for easy reference and cross-checking. I’ve already transcribed over 650 articles and I’m still only scratching the surface! You can check out the project here – Portland Streetcar History.

There’s still a lot to do: I’m currently working on filling out the maps gallery, which will hopefully become the largest repository of streetcar-era maps of Portland on the internet, all with links back to the original download source. I’m also hoping to create chronological maps of each line, so that you can see how each grew and changed over time – it’s going to be a lot of work, but worth it!

As work on this new project progresses, I can see myself start to return some time back to the blog, so it’s certainly not dead… just taking a little rest! Let me know what you think of my new project in the comments and, as always, thanks for your support!