IanSubway Maps of the World
August 10th 2009 02:34
What do you think makes a good map of a city's metro or subway system?
Geographically accurate, spaced out, easy to read, colourful, interesting, aesthetically pleasing or just simple to understand?
Different cities seem to have different ideas, see what you think of the examples below. Click on each image to open a full version. These maps and information sourced from TreeHugger. More metro maps from large towns can be seen here.
Melbourne's Metro is only underground in the city center -- the city loop includes the southern hemisphere's busiest railway station, Finders Street -- but it emerges into an extensive heavy-rail commuter system as it stretches into the suburbs. The map is a shining example of clean, clear diagrammatic design, dispensing with geographic accuracy and relying on the 45-degree diagonal colour coding of lines to denote different zones.
The Tokyo Subway is often considered the most complex of the world's urban rail systems, and not just because it's made up of separate public and private networks. Even if it isn't overly detail oriented (an unofficial map once included the locations of stairs inside stations), the standard map accordingly remains the most complex in the world. Though relatively clear up-close, with line letters and station numbers listed above every station in the Roman alphabet (along with the older Japanese numbers and letters), the map's intricacy lends it a hypnotic, circuit-like quality that well symbolizes the chaotic, connected city itself.
The New York City Subway map is more geographically accurate and less diagrammatic than that of any other large network, a trait that critics say keeps it cluttered and unwieldy. But it wasn't always that way. An update by Massimo Vignelli, published by the MTA between 1974–1979, was more schematic, with simple 45-degree diagonals and separate coloured lines for each route. While the MTA eventually abandoned the map, owing to its lack of geographical accuracy, it has since become an icon of smart subway map design.
The London Underground map, or Tube Map, was once actually many maps: like a number of early urban rail systems, the Underground began with separate lines run by different private operators. It wasn't until 1908 that the lines were consolidated onto one map. But the map remained a challenge to read until 1933, when Harry Beck's design traded geographic accuracy for a relative positioning of stations and their fare zone locations. Angles of route lines were locked at 45 and 90 degrees, helping legibility, and while topographical detail was left out, the Thames was included, lending the map a sense of connection to the grand city it served. Meanwhile, the map's unmistakable Johnston typeface and rounded logo, commissioned by former publicity manager Frank Pick, have become synonymous with London.
It is the "City of Light," but Paris had a fairly heavy design for its Metro map for years. Without a commission, Harry Beck, the designer of the iconic London map, came up with a design to replace the city's squiggly-line map in 1946, but to no avail. Throughout the '90s, the map's routes were straightened out, but all titled at an angle to reflect the city's above-ground topography. In 2001, the Paris Metro finally acceded to the diagram style of many other cities, with a simpler design that owes an obvious debt to Beck and the London Underground.
The metro in Kharkiv (Kharkov), the second largest city in Ukraine after Kiev, might be out of its depth in this slideshow, so to speak. The country's second subway, and the fifth in the USSR when it opened in 1975, the Kharkiv metro is a simple three-line network, common to many former Eastern Bloc subways. But its map is a peculiar stand-out. It uses different colours to denote zones, indicates key streets and district names, and is set upon a jagged and playful geographic representation of the city. It's eye-catching to be sure -- even if it's somewhat evocative of London's divisive 2012 Olympic Games logo.
Geographically accurate, spaced out, easy to read, colourful, interesting, aesthetically pleasing or just simple to understand?
Different cities seem to have different ideas, see what you think of the examples below. Click on each image to open a full version. These maps and information sourced from TreeHugger. More metro maps from large towns can be seen here.
Melbourne
Tokyo
New York
London
Paris
It is the "City of Light," but Paris had a fairly heavy design for its Metro map for years. Without a commission, Harry Beck, the designer of the iconic London map, came up with a design to replace the city's squiggly-line map in 1946, but to no avail. Throughout the '90s, the map's routes were straightened out, but all titled at an angle to reflect the city's above-ground topography. In 2001, the Paris Metro finally acceded to the diagram style of many other cities, with a simpler design that owes an obvious debt to Beck and the London Underground.
Kharkiv
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