Train Geekery

[natbudin]

I stumbled across this article via the 37signals blog.  Apparently, a graphic designer took it upon himself to redesign the (horrifically complex) New York City transit map to make it easier to read.  IMO, he did a great job, geographical distortions notwithstanding.  It's a really beautiful map, and every other city I've seen distorts their subway

Comments

[zrealm]

Like many things in NYC, riding the Subway is a privileged, which is earned by learning how to read a map :)

[fishwithissues]

This reminds me a lot of a map Momus linked to that the MTA used for a short while in the 70s. It has the same twizzler-y multiple parallel lines and clean geographical abstraction (haha, look at central park. it looks like luke skywalker's kitchen). They're both clearly a lot prettier.

http://www.nycsubway.org/img/maps/system_1972.jpg

I don't think it's an open and shut case that this is easier to follow, though. Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but those fat twizzler lines seem kind of unweildy, and I do find myself checking the relation between lines and streets fairly often. Not sure. Seems like a trade-off either way. Maps are inherently imperfect I guess, or otherwise they wouldn't be maps.

[fishwithissues]

looking closer i actually do think this dude's map has a lot of smarts in it and it'll probably influence the next revision I'm sure.

[natbudin]

Yeah, I've seen that one too. It's probably the prettiest of all the maps, but IMO it's also the least useful, since on that one, the colors don't correspond to signage at all. (And yeah, referring to the Broadway lines as "the Red Line" is a stupid tourist move, but it's also basically correct.)

I do think that this kind of map is very helpful to people not familiar with the city (i.e. tourists) - having recently been a tourist in both Montreal and Toronto, I can attest that all the tourist destinations typically have directions from the nearest subway station on their web site, so what you need to know is how to get from the one you're standing at to the one you want to be at.

But if you're trying to get to a particular address, it's probably not so helpful. The Jabbour map clearly wins over the 1972 map in that regard, but the current NYC Transit map is better than either of them at that. I do think the Jabbour one is a decent enough compromise between the two points of view, though.

[fishwithissues]

in general i find new york city a much better place to live in than to visit.