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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."
Concise description: a map of the New York subway system drawn in the style of the London Tube system map.
But that's the point, these stylised maps are to navigate the transport system, not to get around at a surface level. They serve different needs. When you've a map where all the lines are geographically correct it makes it hard to understand how to get from station A to station B, make out the station names and there is a lot of wasted space! Have a look at the London underground geographical map vs the actual tube map for example.
Far better to have a map that fits the purpose. If you want to navigate at the surface level, buy a proper map.
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Wow, that looks so much more useful. ;-)
They should switch from the stupid circular map in the article to this one
Seriously, though. The reason they didn't include this map in the article was probably because it is so obviously better than the circular one. They had to juxtapose the circular one with nothing to make it look like it's worth anything.