S/D: Metro maps of the world

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London is obviously the classic, but which others are you keen on and which make you retch? For the latter I'd always go for New York — the Manhattan Island bit is too stringy and tightly packed.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:45 (twenty years ago)

The NY subway map was totally ruined when they put all the bus transfers on it.

Before then, it was primarily responsible for most people's totally warped view of the size and shape of Manhattan.

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:47 (twenty years ago)

the man who did the london map got a flat fee. and then the merchandising commenced!

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:48 (twenty years ago)

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:54 (twenty years ago)

I like Moscow's. Beck's approach is used to completely sacrifice geography in favour of clarity.
ihttp://pics.rbc.ru/img/ver99/metro-moscow.gif

― robster (robster), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:55 (twenty years ago)

Bah! I even did a search to make sure there wasn't one already, but didn't bank on "subway" being used in the thread title....

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:55 (twenty years ago)

I would have thought the Moscow one was based more on the Paris Metro...

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:56 (twenty years ago)

The most confusing metro map ever?

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:58 (twenty years ago)

aaacckkk!! Mine eyes!

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:58 (twenty years ago)

oh, i don't know. that tokyo one doesn't look much more confusing than the paris one. what is the big green egg in the middle though? is it like a pac-man game and you have to get the egg?

i remember the beijing one made my head spin round and stop working...

― emsk ( emsk), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:01 (twenty years ago)

The current Paris one isn't too bad, but it's heavily London-influenced. The Paris in-car strip maps are virtually identical to their London equivalents.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:03 (twenty years ago)

http://www.moveandstay.com/beijing/guide_skytrain.asp

er haha, perhaps i'm wrong about that. maybe the one i'm thinking of had all the buses on too or something.

the paris one is menk. i mean, i can use it and everything, but it just seems unnecessarily complicated.

― emsk ( emsk), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:04 (twenty years ago)

the green thing in the middle of the Tokyo one is the Emperor's Palace.

― Good Dog (Good Dog), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:05 (twenty years ago)

Keep it simple:

http://www.reed.edu/~reyn/waterloo.JPG

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:16 (twenty years ago)

One of my friends thinks that Band and Monument stations should be renamed "City", partly because of the W&C line's name.

(plus, I think I remember noticing the platform indicators on the Wimbledon branch showing "City" for all trains bound for the District main line after Earls Court. I can't remember if this included Upminster trains, or just ones that used the Tower Hill or Mansion House turnback bays)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:24 (twenty years ago)

There's already a City station for Thameslink!

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:25 (twenty years ago)

Isn't that properly called Thameslink City though? It could always be renamed Holborn Viaduct. Or Snow Hill - that was what the Holborn Viaduct through platforms were called before they originally closed (in about 1915).

(are the stations with Thameslink in their name going to be renamed now the route isn't going to be branded Thameslink any more?)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:27 (twenty years ago)

But that would further the myth put about by LU that Bank and Monument somehow form a convenient interchange, even though moving from one to the other involves 15 minutes hiking up and down staircases and traipsing along miles of corridor. Much easier to just walk down the road, IMHO.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:27 (twenty years ago)

Bah. The worst interchange anywhere on the network is Canary Wharf, and that's still shown as a single station on the maps. Canary Wharf DLR isn't even the nearest DLR station to Canary Wharf Underground.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:30 (twenty years ago)

i've just come back from berlin where the metro map completely foiled me - ugly and illegible (particularly when rendered in teeny print in the infinitely crap time out city guide). Moscow's great; Paris shite; Brussels good

― barbarian cities (jaybob3005), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:47 (twenty years ago)

What are they going to call Thameslink? Clunky, rickety and crap?

― Dave B (daveb), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Predictably Late.

(I *always* forget that the 10.11 is actually the 10.03 really and once (but only once) missed it when it turned up then!)

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:58 (twenty years ago)

xpost

"First Capital Connect"

(which will also be the branding of the Kings Cross and Moorgate suburban routes)

"Thameslink" will only be used as the name of the project previously referred to as "Thameslink 2000", a name which was getting rather outdated.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 12:58 (twenty years ago)

(FirstGroup's press release still uses "Thameslink" to refer to the services using the Widened Lines, but refers to Thameslink 2000 as "the Thameslink Programme")

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:01 (twenty years ago)

First Capital Connect? WTF?!?!? That's worse than GET ONE RAILWAY. It sounds like a bloody mortgage company.

I should pay more attention to the Russian's OTM magazine, clearly.

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:02 (twenty years ago)

John Major, deserves a level of hell in which he is forced to forever ride the shite railways of britain and set labours like 'getting a refund'. Nice John cunting Major my cock.

― Dave B (daveb), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

I can see we're heading off down a branch line here, but I once got diverted to Paddington via most of the home counties while trying to get home from Birmingham to Euston. Arriving five hours late, I went to the ticket office to get a complaint/refund form.

"Oh," said the man behind the plexiglass, "You have to complain to Virgin. It's only GWR here, you need to go to Euston to get a Virgin complaints form."

Upon which I politely explained that I had spent the previous five hours doing everything I could to get to Euston yet had somehow washed up on his patch instead.... Actually, I think I may have just gone "ARRRGHHH!!!!!" and stormed out...

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:15 (twenty years ago)

Incidentally, when the direct Birmingham-Paddington line opened, around 1900, the GWR's Birmingham trains were quite a bit faster than the ones from Euston - they were the first trains to get from London to Birmingham in 2 hours or less.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:17 (twenty years ago)

Someone here would know this. Which was the first Main Line railroad to open, and when did it open, and where did it go?

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:19 (twenty years ago)

(Also, make that *passenger* railway, and steam powered, none of this horse drawn Mumbles nonsense.)

― Ah! The Feinbos! (kate), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:24 (twenty years ago)

The Liverpool and Manchester - 1830, I think.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 13:31 (twenty years ago)

this is one of my favourite web pages.

http://owen.massey.net/tubemaps.html

― Pete W (peterw), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 14:18 (twenty years ago)

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1854142720.02.LZZZZZZZ

the book of the thread.

as for long transfers, one of the reasons that moscow is able to look like that is that all the "interchanges" are exactly the same as bank/canary wharf. therefore being able to transfer between biblioteka i. lenina and arbatskaya, or alexandrovskii sad, (4 line interchange!) means just physically walking underground between two stations, the equiv. of leicester sq to covent garden maybe. albeit underground, which is handy when its -20, and you miss the sweet smell of BO, or you might need to buy a magnifying glass or plastic bag from an old lady.

but the circle as a circle is a wonderful thing on that map.

as for paris being complicated, well as with bus maps, there reaches a certain point of netwrok density/complexity, where you literally cannot display the information any more clearly. or can you? at any rate, i think there needs to be recognised that this is a major constraining factor on legibility

― ambrose (ambrose), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:15 (twenty years ago)

Then there's the LA map...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

The NY subway map was totally ruined when they put all the bus transfers on it.
Before then, it was primarily responsible for most people's totally warped view of the size and shape of Manhattan.

-- Ah! The Feinbos! (masonicboo...), January 10th, 2006 10:47 PM. (later)

Ah, I have a tshirt with the NYC subway map on it: Central Park is wider than it is tall.

I always just thought it was a really crappy tshirt. (Well, it is, but not for that reason)

― Sasha (sgh), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 00:21 (twenty years ago)

Ah, I have a tshirt with the NYC subway map on it: Central Park is wider than it is tall.

central park is about 50 city blocks (2 1/2 miles) long. its width only spans a few avenue blocks though.

― 2 columbus circle in 1964 (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 00:26 (twenty years ago)

wikipedia sez: 843 acres or 3.41 kmÂ²; a rectangle 2.5 miles by one-half mile, or 4 km Ã— 800 m

― 2 columbus circle in 1964 (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 00:28 (twenty years ago)

Also, I can never not think of Manhattan as being a giant penis, thanks to the constant comedy graffiti defacement of the maps on the N train.

― I Can't Be Bothered To Think Of A Clever Screenname (kate), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

The London tube map is the best by an almost embarassing amount. Of course, I am biased...

― chap who would dare to work for the man (chap), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 13:33 (twenty years ago)

That Moscow one is pretty kickass.

― gbx (skowly), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 13:33 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

http://www.theride.org/Rideguide/AAmap.gif

Ann Arbors looking familiar

― Kondratieff, Thursday, 12 June 2008 08:33 (seventeen years ago)

Cleveland's is pretty dire, although I have always loved the giant "LAKE ERIE." That's how you know what direction you're traveling in Cleveland. "Can you see the lake? What side is it on? The left? OK, you're going east."

http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gcrtamapyk9.jpg

― Pancakes Hackman, Thursday, 12 June 2008 15:00 (seventeen years ago)

Argh.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8816/gcrtamapyk9.jpg

― Pancakes Hackman, Thursday, 12 June 2008 15:00 (seventeen years ago)

I have that transit book; got it for my boyfriend for Christmas. It's so awesome. Toronto has a horrible, boring little subway system :(

― Finefinemusic, Thursday, 12 June 2008 16:49 (seventeen years ago)

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