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A Circular New York City Subway Map To Straighten Things Out
Daniel_Stuckey writes "The U.K.'s Max Roberts, a mapmaker and critic, has created a map that sees this problem and then solves it by adopting a similar distortion strategy to the MTA map, but to a far greater degree. The map heads in the direction of a diagram and away from a map representing features. It may be the most lucid reinterpretation of the New York City subway map I've seen yet."
"The U.K.'s Max Roberts, a mapmaker and critic, has created a map that sees this problem and then solves it"
Sees what problem?
Seriously, if you're going to summarise an article event then fucking do so the right way...
Concise description: a map of the New York subway system drawn in the style of the London Tube system map.
The circular tube map, in my opinion, is much better than the square one we have now. Since the original was created quite a number of lines have been added, as well as tram lines and the overground lines which has caused it to be come quite cluttered. The circular map seems to solve this and give a much better indication of where the line actually goes. I'd hope TFL look at it closely.
I don't know much about the NYC subway system but one thing is obvious, they really need to rethink the colours for the lines in Brooklyn, as they're far too similar!
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Where is the real map so that we can compare it to it?
Why can't people write good articles? Including the current map for comparison should have been an obvious thing to do.
The problem is that subways rarely take you exactly where you want to go. They take you NEAR where you want to go. So your destination is not the subway station you're going to but some other place not on the network ABOVE GROUND that is near that station. Which means distorting the subway map into a flow chart that doesn't line up with the above surface maps/topography is a deal breaker. I want to know where the hell I'm going. Not just the name of the station but the actual street I'm going to pop out at. Because that's where I'm actually going.
This might work fine for tourists. I really don't know. Maybe some guy reading off a card finds this more useful for getting around. But couldn't the same guy do just as well with the old map? I just don't get the point of this map. It makes the map less useful.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This makes sense. The original subway system started in Manhattan and it is still basically the hub for the entire system... if you want to go from the Bronx to Brooklyn you have to go by way of Manhattan. If you take the F train in Queens to go to Brooklyn you use the 'downtown' train, named so because it goes downtown when it goes through Manhattan. There are generally no direct lines borough to borough though there are exceptions, so Manhattan, while physically small, is disproportionately large in terms of lines and passengers served, as is shown on the circular map.
Even Atlantis had a subway with concentric circles, according to Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis.
If it worked for them, it can sure work for New York.
...You are over-qualified and under-paid. If we give you a raise, we will break the cosmic balance of the universe.
Can’t they just leave Staten Island off of there altogether? That’s not part of the subway, and it only got included on the official map after it won the mayoral office for Giuliani, who is a total asshole.
Apparently Good design == dumbing down
The existing map is extremely hard to read. Maps should not be hard to read, they should be functional. I do not wish to use my limited consciousness deciphering a map when I could be doing something more useful with it.
1) Use above ground map to locate nearby station to your start/destination.
2) Use subway map to work out how to to get from station A to station B
Above ground maps are for use above ground. Subway maps are for use below ground. Don't conflate the two.
Wrong article, dude.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
You are should be an editor at slashdot! You have already demonstrated the necessary skills.
That subway network is somewhat more complex than New York's.
Yet the Apple comment could have been relevant, had he mentioned Apple's tendency to (over)simplify things.
Really? Then why didn't you link to one?
That's a rectangular map with one circle near the middle.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As someone familiar with the subway and the standard maps, I don't really see much advantage in this alternate design. The current are easy enough to deal with if you have decent reading skills. I prefer the way the current map indicates the points at which you cross from Manhattan - Brooklyn.
Also: the map has at least one mistake: Fort Hamilton Parkway and Church Avenue (on the F line) should be switched with each other.
It does seem that the information content on the page is spread out much closer to uniformly, so it is mostly an improvement. But there are spots on the map where information is crowded together to preserve the aesthetics of the curves, so really no different in principle from a geographically accurate map or a stylized grid or any other solution.
"A Subway named Mobius"
Anybody notice the typographical error - "Bolwing Green"?
I agree that NYC doesn't lend itself to a circular map; it's too west-heavy. For those who want geographical accuracy, Google Maps with transit lines superimposed works pretty well on a smartphone.
This does not look broken to me. When I visited NYC many moons ago, I was not confused by the Subway. I didn't even have a map--I just used the ones in the station. To be fair, I never left Manhattan; but I did go way up to the Cloisters. I even took an express train back downtown. No missed stops. Just as easy as DC metro. Of course, I have laces on my shoes not velcro and I'm not a "designer". What? You don't like the tone of that? Shove it, buddy. This is a story about New York!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This map is beyond useless. It gives you no idea of where you'll start or where you'll end up. Yes, you can finally see where your connections are, but that's really secondary to not ending up 3 miles away from where you wanted to be. Look at the D line in Brooklyn, 18th, 20th, Bay Parkway and 23rd all lie on 86th street, which can be seen as a stop on the R and N lines. This map shows the path to be perpendicular to 86th street, not on it. The distortion of Manhattan to cause the top of the borough to be wider and not allow for a simple visual estimate of walking distance is equally stupid. In fact that happens all over the map, it's simply not possible to find the closest stop to your destination using this map.
This is a map by someone who's never been in New York, much less rode the subway, for people who would not need to read a map to get where they're going anyway.
Massimo Vignelli redid both the signage and the map for the MTA in the 70's. Minimalism all the way - the signage remains to this day, white Helvetica on a black background, simple colored circles for the lines, and almost nothing else...there's barely even any arrows.
And his map...oh, it's a thing of beauty. "It was not a map. It was a diagram. It was not about what happens aboveground. The purpose of the diagram was to show where the subway lines go." So perfect that when the MTA wanted a weekend-service-change map they had him reissue it (and this time he eliminated ALL geographic information, and people love it)...and a copy of the original ,a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=89300">still hangs in the Museum of Modern Art
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
The Vignelli Map. A triumph of minimalist, functional design - and pure beauty to boot. The original had some geographic information (parks, major landmarks, etc) but when he redesigned it for the Weekender he stripped even that out. Now it's just lines and stops, as it should be. You need to worry about geography on the street, not in the Land of the Mole People.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
The great thing here is that it's not distorted and based in reality. Even if I need to reference an above ground map for my final destination, my start point will very closely correspond on both maps, this is impossible on the circular design.
i noticed that the map doesn't show the Amtrak station or airports. i guess Mr. Roberts didn't have time to add them
oh yeah, i saw there is a place named Jamaica on the map.
"I've just been spending time in the subway, riding in circles. Thinking in circles. There's no way out."
http://www.juxtapoz.com/erotica/nyc-penis-subway-map
Comparing the maps side by side, the most noticeable difference is the font size and the thickness of the route lines. This makes it seem more organized and less squeezed together. But in reality, to be able to read it from the same distance it would have to be in a larger format.
You can probably "improve" the current map by the same techniques and not have the same level of distortion. Maybe, a more detailed version can be put in pamphlet form and large station kiosks and the current form can go in each train.
The London Tube map first started using geographical distortion in 1910, and by 1933 had produced the famous 'Beck' map which all other subway services have more or less copied.
This map is only about 100 years behind the Brits. Nice try...
Can someone explain where this "silhouette of a Motorola RAZR" thing fits in?
A link to (or even to a page with a link to) the current MTA map might have helped give a little context, too.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
That is not how people use these maps. Even the official subway maps are terrible at what you want from them. 1cm distance maybe tens of kilometers in the far end of the map.
Instead people search nearest station name from real map, and then use subway map to seek same station. It works.
But these paper maps are not even needed in London/NYC, mobile apps are way to go in these cities.
Professional map-maker putting extra effort into making non-crappy map makes better map.
News at eleven.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The Brits have been playing with tube Train map distortions for about 80 years now.
Here is a site that lets you see the classic 1930s Beck map (the maps which all the other subway maps are copied from), the actual geographic map and the current map for the Central London part of the Tube. Watch it and weep:
http://www.fourthway.co.uk/realunderground/
Most of the stations - esp in S Brooklyn, outer Queens and The Bronx, serve mainly commuters and New Yorkers ( I mean seriously, how many tourists go up to see the hall of famous americans in The Bronx ? or the Bronx Zoo ? or the Brooklyn Museum ? (fabulous Egyptian collection btw)
Tourists need mainly manhattan, and the existing map does ok; the main problem is the multiplicity of trains on the tracks - local and express
If you are a serious tourist, get a Guide Michelin, or whatever the e-quivalent is; it will tell you what to do to get to the Brooklyn Museum, or the Morris Jumel Mansion, or Lydig ave, or...
Anyway, I assume that like me, many of you have been in London/Paris etc, and I seem to recall from my long ago student days that relying on the subway map often led to long, unexpected walks.
The hurricane hit the Rockaways far worse than I thought.
This all goes back to Harry beck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Beck
He basically designed the abstract London Tube map and later the famous Paris Metro map on the same general priciple: sacrifice geo accuracy, for readabilty.
Reasoning would be one requires a different map underground, then above ground, as underground counting stations, and finding the best spot to switch trains is more important then geo correctness.
Circular has nothing to do with it, London's and Paris' are for square, but still have the same abstractness.
No it doesn't. According to your link it has a circle line. According to the map in your link, its shape is far from circular. If it's anything at all it's amoeboid.
London also has a circle line. It's even less circular than that one.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Okay, where are the express trains? I don't see any diamond shapes on this map. Has the author been to NYC?
Kriston