Maps

Transit Planning for Fictional Universes: It’s Serious Business

Posted on November 8, 2011 in Amusing, Maps

As longtime readers know, I would reject the claim — repeated today by Benjamin Kabak at Second Avenue Sagas — that “in fictional universes, subway systems do not have to make much sense.” So I would not be as quick as he to excuse the incoherences of the newly announced Gotham Transit Authority Map:

While Batman himself has other transport options, many fictional people are going to need transit to assemble the necessary crowds and populate the alleys and crevices of his plots, and those people certainly need better than this.

Perhaps I nitpick because I was raised on higher-grade science fiction and fantasy, in an era when authors felt compelled to think about every relevant dimension of their world. In those days, you didn’t worry so much, while exploring the fictional world, that if you leaned on a tree it might collapse like a flimsy cardboard set, revealing a blank space that the author hadn’t seen fit to imagine. J.R.R. Tolkien knew all the personalities and travails of every king for the last several millennia, and of many mythical ages before that. You could at least expect an urban imaginer to be sure the transport system made credible sense.

Even more important than the fictional universe, of course, is the hypothetical one, where even more care is required!

Are you an aspiring science fiction writer or screenwriter? If so, have you hired a transit planner yet?

san francisco: frequent network map refined

Posted on November 4, 2011 in Branding, Frequent Networks, Maps, San Francisco

SF Cityscape has done a refinement of their excellent frequent network map for San Francisco, one that highlights the basic structure of the network that's useful for impatient people at all times of day. You can download the full GIF and or PDF here. A slice:

The map is so cool that I feel liberated to nitpick. Some other basic principles for maps of this type, worth considering:

Limited stop service (numbers with an L suffix in San Francisco) is substantially faster than local-stop, so I think it deserves its own color, possibly shading gradually to the local color when the limited segment ends, as 71L does west of Masonic. A separate color would also clue in the viewer that those lines stop only at the points indicated, while locals stop at more stops.
To further clarify the previous point, I'd come up with a really tiny stop symbol to mark all stops on local-stop services — maybe labeling them in smaller print or not labeling them at all. This would give a visual indication of frequency of stops that would give an accurate view of relative speed. You really do not want to ride all the way across the city on Line 1, which stops every block or two. Such a notation would help the limited stop services — which really are useful for going all the way across the city — stand out more effectively.
The mapmaker has followed the transit agency's practice of marking only wheelchair-accessible stops on the surface streetcars such as N. In fact, these line stop every 2-3 blocks, so I would be inclined to mark all stops, maybe using a notation like that above. I'd also advocate separate maps highlighting issues that matter to disabled persons. (Has any transit authority published special maps or online map layers specifically for people in wheelchairs etc, as an alternative to including all this information on a main system map?)
I would also be inclined to emphasize that surface stops around a rapid transit station are indeed AT that station, so for example I would extend the Van Ness and Civic Center station bullets to encompass the adjacent bus stops rather than giving those stops separate coordinate names. This is especially important on schematic maps because the user is wary that a small space on the map might be a large distance.

But again, I can nitpick usefully only because it's a really great map!

the metro as metaphor

Posted on September 18, 2011 in Maps, Meditations, Rail Transit

Now and then, advertising seizes on the image of a classic subway map, using it to organise some other set of ideas. From the Metro Wine Map of France:

The Metro station stands for some distinct thing that we should learn to distinguish from other things nearby — fine-grained appellations in this case. The brightly colored subway lines are categories that we should also understand — in this case, the wine regions of France. Somehow this metaphor seems to satisfy, over and over, as a way to bring a certain je ne sais quoi to a topic.

(Absentmindedly, I begin to sketch a radial metro network converging on a central station complex called "Plants in my garden." A bright blue line called "Heather Family" departs from the Cassiope platform and heads outward via stations called Vaccinium (blueberries/cranberries) and Gaultheria before swerving toward a terminal loop of scenic Rhododendron stations. A bright red line called "Rose Family" departs from a platform called "Rosa" and heads outward via stations called Rubus (alight here for blackberries and raspberries), Fragaria (strawberries), Pyrus (pear) and Malus (apple) [those last two stations too closely spaced, really] before reaching its terminus: Prunus, the cherries, plums, apricots and peaches.)

Why does the metro line serve as such an excellent selling or organizing metaphor? Conjecture: it suggests speed, order, power, reliability, a larger design that gives meaning to experience, and an urban(e) sense of excitement (as opposed to the rural excitement of the "open road").

Of course, a true transit network functions only through the interdependence of its lines, like the lines of Daniel Huffman's transit-map of the Mississippi River system.

But the metro-as-metaphor doesn't seem to need that. The "wine-metro" map at the top of this post is all disconnected but still seems to sing, at least to its intended crowd.

What is it about the rail transit as a metaphor? How could we corral this metaphorical power to get some of the real thing built?

good network maps: clear without color?

Posted on September 13, 2011 in Legibility, Maps, Portland

As I mentioned two days back, the new Spokane, Washington network map [Full PDF], designed by CHK America, is exceptionally clear in presenting the layers of the network so that you can see all of the following at a glance;

The network of frequent services, useful to you if you aren't willing to wait long.
The network of all all-day services (frequent or not), which is the total network if you're travelling midday.
Supplementary express services, mostly peak-only, that are likely to be useful only to the regular peak hour commuter. These always contain a high degree of complexity, so they must be presented in a way that visually recedes from the rest of the network, so that the all-day network is clearly visible.

The key point is that each layer is never allowed to distract from the ones above it.

But it has one other important feature that I should mention: If you look closely, you'll see that its content is still there if you copy it to black-and white. Line widths and styles distinguish all the service categories from each other. The only exception is the distinction between "Shuttles" and "Frequent Routes", both wide lines, and this matters less than it seems because the shuttles are frequent too.

All this is relevant not just because the world is still full of black-and-white photocopiers, but also because of color-blindness. Matt comments:

Recently I noticed playing around with Scribus, the Open Source Desktop Publisher (http://www.scribus.net) that "Scribus has a well developed tool, the Color Wheel plug-in, which helps to guide you selecting complementary colors, as well as visualize colors seen by folks with certain kinds of color-blindness.". So turning on an option for the three or four different types of colour-blindness lets you see what the colours look like for someone with each type.
Perhaps there is a chance that in the future a pdf viewer could incorporate something like that, such that bus maps (mostly they're rendered into pdf) and anything else in pdf could be seen as if you were colour-blind. Then the bus companies could experiment and release colourblind friendly maps.

All good, but the simplest solution for color-blindless issues is to design maps so well that the information is all there in line weights and styles, so that the color is supplementary — very, very helpful for those who can see it but not essential. The Spokane map does this.

The current Portland map also tries to do this, with a different line-weight for each of its four layers. The four layers are:

Light rail: colored line with black outline.
Frequent Bus: heavy solid colored line (and, if you look really closely, a yellow-shaded line number)
Basic Bus: slightly thinner colored line.
Peak-only: dashed line.

Portland's TriMet uses different colors for different lines, but if you copy it to black-and-white you should still be able to make out these four line weights (though not, of course, the feeble yellow shading of frequent line numbers).

I agree with many observers that the distinction between frequent bus and basic bus is insufficiently strong on the Portland map, whereas the Spokane map shows this distinction dramatically. In the past, when I've tried to use the Portland map as an example of clear delineation of network layers, I've been told that the distinction just isn't clear enough, so now I'll use the Spokane map instead. Still, Portland's intention is clear enough.

spokane: a very clear network map

Posted on September 11, 2011 in Frequent Networks, Loops, Maps

Spokane Transit (Washington USA) has a new network map out that is one of the clearest I've ever seen. It carefully delineates not just frequent services from infrequent ones, but also presents cases where basic infrequent lines combine to form frequent segments, and ensures that peak commuter express services are visible but can't distract from the clear all-day pattern. The whole thing in its full glory is here: Download Spokane 2011 map. The legend, too, is both clear and wonkish at the same time.

Congrats to Spokane Transit for designing this map for the public.

Full disclosure: I was the lead planner on a restructuring study for Spokane Transit back around the turn of the century, and if I remember right, our project invented the continuous two-way frequent loop of Lines 33 and 44. (The loop is closed on the west side as Line 20, as shown on the full PDF.) Despite many excellent improvements (and some sad service cuts) since then, it's great to see it still operating.

This kind of two-way loop is often useful as a way to combine radial lines and grid elements into a single service. Line 33, for example, intersects Line s 24, 25, and 90 in a grid manner, one line north-south and the other east-west, allowing for a range of L-shaped trips via a connection at this point. However, Line 33 also flow through so that the same segments can also be experienced as radial; if you stay on the bus, you'll get downtown eventually, and to a lot of other useful destinations.

I sometimes caution against excessive attachment to loops. In some contexts, with far more financial resources, I might applaud the breaking up of this loop, as I did of London's Circle Line. Given the extreme financial pressure on US transit agencies, though, I would contend that Spokane's frequent loop was an efficient solution, maybe even an elegant one.

UPDATE: The next post on the Spokane map, looking at colorblindness issues and comparing the map to Portland's, is here.

maps and aesthetics: washington’s hidden spiral

Posted on July 19, 2011 in Maps, Washington DC

Transit maps always express a choice about how you see the city. Do you want to show the city in its geographical detail? Or do you want to be able to show the structure of the transit system, which involves expanding some areas and reducing others, often leading to distortions of scale that mislead the geographically-minded rider? Like many, the classic Washington DC Metro map does this, shrinking outer distances and exploding inner ones.

Structure can be rendered many ways, and once you're free of literal geographic scale, it's tempting to create some other visual logic. Do you want to emphasise the concentric quality of your city, or do you want it to display many equally important points? Which is bigger, the lines or the stations? Do lines meekly serve stations, or are stations mere decorations on lines?

Even more basic, what kind of structure makes you happy? The designers of the Wellington, New Zealand transit map like diagonals, rounding all routings off to the nearest 45 degree angle.

It sacrifices certain geographical information to show the system in a certain pleasing way, which is fine.

Point is, you can find any balance of geographical accuracy, systemic clarity, and sheer visual pleasure, and still be accurate. As for whether it's useful, that depends on the audience and purposes.

So there's nothing technically wrong with mapping Washington DC's metro system like this (follow link for sharper one):

… as Andrew Bossi does. As a system map, it's a strong visual choice, but it's not inaccurate!

what maps should be at stops and stations?

Posted on July 13, 2011 in Legibility, London, Maps, Navigation

Yesterday I linked to a fine polemic by Kerwin Datu of the Global Urbanist, regarding London's much-imitated wayfinding system. Datu reserved particular scorn for the "spider maps" presented at certain stops and stations, which show you only the bus lines that emanate from there. Maps like this one. (This is actually the west half of a map showing bus routes from the bright yellow area where the map would be posted.)

Buses from Farringdon (West End)

Datu's quip again:

These maps, which TfL call 'spider maps', fail at the very first task: helping you identify your destination. Normally, once you've found where you're going on a map, you work backwards to where you are. But not here. On these spider maps, you are only shown where the closest bus routes want to take you, not where you want to go. It's like the old joke they tell beyond the Pale: when asking a local for directions one is told, 'well, if that's where you want to go, I wouldn't start from here!'

The maps have many defenders, however, so I should expand on why Datu's polemic resonates with me.

First of all, of course, the London maps only make sense at all in a network where all bus lines can be assumed to be frequent. That's true in inner London but not in many of the systems that imitate it. If we show the customer a big, bright line direct from their location to their destination, we're conveying an impression of physical existence. The bright line looks like a physical thing, like a road, not just the site of an occasional service event. The whole point of Frequent Network mapping, of frequent buses and rapid transit, is that we want people to make exactly that association, to see frequent services as always there ready for them to use.

But when we use such a bright line to refer to an hourly or peak-only or nighttime-only service, we undermine that message and give a misleading impression. Strong lines on the map suggest continuous existence on analogy with rapid transit lines, but these infrequent and short-span lines don't exist most of the time. They are probably not there when you need them.

All that, of course, is part of the case for transit maps that reflect frequency/span categories, both emphasising frequent and long-span services and specifically de-emphasising ephemeral ones like peak-only or night-only services.

But there's a more specific issue with spider maps or "buses from here" maps. They promote single-seat rides while concealing connection opportunities. More generally, they discourage people from discovering how to navigate the complete network.

There are contexts where this is fine. At an outer suburban station where the only bus services are local circulators and links to a few nearby suburbs, the "spider map" allows the customer to see the complete local network without having to find it in a massive map of the whole system.

But there's a different way to organize mapping at stops/stations that might be both more truthful and would help people see more clearly (a) the structure of frequent services that are easy to use even with connections and (b) the necessary detail for all services in a local area. That would be to provide two maps:

A Frequent Network map for the entire city (or if the city is as big as London, maybe a large subarea of the city). This map would have a prominent "you are here" mark, but its function would to say "here's everywhere you can go from here, on service that's available right now." (You could simplify this map by deleting some Frequent services that would not conceivably be useful on any possible trip from "here," but if you think broadly there usually aren't many of those.) This map would also convey a very useful subliminal message: "here is where you are in your city, and in your network." At least for spatial navigators, this map has a useful long-term value in helping people internalize the network so that they can navigate it more freely and spontaneously in the future.

A local area map, showing all routes emanating from "here" (or perhaps all routes with those from "here" highlighted) but just out to a radius of several km. The ideal radius is the distance beyond which you should usually be looking for rapid line, possibly with a connection, rather than a local bus line from "here." The local area map should be strongly coded to highlight Frequent services and downplay peak-only and other short-span services.

In both cases, lines exiting the map area should be labelled at the edge with any more distant destinations that you would logically use that line, from "here," to reach. (That may not be all the places the line goes.)

This approach would not lead the customer as precisely as a spider map or "buses from here" map does, but nor would it mislead the customer as much as those maps can sometimes do. Sometimes, the fastest way to get from here to there involves making a connection, but the connection may be very easy and very frequent, and we should resist mapping styles that conceal those opportunities.

That's my instinct, but maybe it's just my prejudice. What do you think?

london: questioning sacred maps

Posted on July 12, 2011 in Legibility, London, Maps, Navigation

Buses from Farringdon (West End)

Are you tired of hearing that London does everything right when it comes to transit? Do you wonder if the mapping styles widely copied from London are always the best? Are you even open to the heresy that London's famous Underground map, despite its global reach as an image, may be less than perfect? Then you'll enjoy Kerwin Datu's affectionate take-down of London's information system, at the Global Urbanist. My favorite bit, about the image above:

These maps, which TfL call 'spider maps', fail at the very first task: helping you identify your destination. Normally, once you've found where you're going on a map, you work backwards to where you are. But not here. On these spider maps, you are only shown where the closest bus routes want to take you, not where you want to go. It's like the old joke they tell beyond the Pale: when asking a local for directions one is told, 'well, if that's where you want to go, I wouldn't start from here!'

UPDATE: Excellent arguments in London's defense, in the comments. More responsible followup by me here.

chicago: living the grid

Posted on June 22, 2011 in Chicago, Legibility, Maps, Navigation, Paris, Rail Transit

If you visit Chicago, and a local friend tells you to meet her at the Western "L" station, then either (a) she's not really your friend or (b) she isn't as local as she claims. There are five stations called Western in the Chicago rapid transit network:

These duplicate names arise from naming stations solely after a cross street, without reference to the street or path the rail line is following.

But the secret language of Chicago transit desires is even more subtle. If your friend tells you to meet her at Western Brown Line station, she's probably a local, but if she directs you to Western Blue Line station, you're still in trouble. As you can see above, there are two. This one is the more scenic, but note the absence of any signage that might distinguish it from the other one:

Although there are a small handful of duplicate station names in other New World gridded cities (one pair in Buenos Aires, four pairs in Cleveland, two pairs in Philadelphia), New York City is the only system I know of where you'll see the same naming style used in force.

Few agencies, however, would give the same name to two stations on the same line, as Chicago does. Toronto, one of the few big cities that's as relentlessly gridded as Chicago, is obviously at pains to avoid it. Their U-shaped north-south subway line crosses many main streets twice, and in each case they append "West" to the name of the more westerly of the two.

Los Angeles, like Chicago, has a long Western Avenue that has two stations where different branches of a rail line cross it. But they didn't call both stations "Western." They used the full co-ordinates: "Wilshire/Western" as opposed to "Hollywood/Western."

How do Chicagoans cope with all these duplicate names, even on the same line? No big deal, says Jeff Busby, a Chicago-sourced transit planner now at Vancouver's TransLink:

In partial answer to your question, I would observe that the grid is an overriding organizing element for Chicagoans. Everyone knows that State and Madison is 0N/S & 0E/W and coordinates are powerful for knowing where you are and how to get somewhere else. Station platform signs give the N/S & E/W coordinates. Station names that reinforce their location in the grid are valuable. I know that Ashland is 1600W and Western is 2400W so that new restaurant I’ve never been to at 2200W is probably closer to the Western station.

To minimize clutter on the system map, stations are generally named for the arterial that crosses perpendicular to the rail line, but in the local language (and the on-board announcements) they are known by both cross streets. For example, the Loop stations are known as State/Lake, Clark/Lake, Randolph/Wabash, Library-State/Van Buren, etc even though they are abbreviated on maps as State, Clark, Randolph and Library.

In this sense, having five "Western" stations is not as confusing at it might seem. First, it immediately orients you to where they are — on Western Avenue, accessible by the 49-Western bus that travels from Berwyn (5300N) south to 79th (7900S), and a local suggesting that you meet at the “Western L station” would probably use a different term (from North to South):

Western (Brown Line) – Lincoln Square (after the neighborhood)
Western (O’Hare Blue Line) – Western/Milwaukee
Western (Forest Park Blue Line) – Western/Congress (or Eisenhower)
Western (Pink Line) – Western/Cermak
Western (Orange Line) – Probably Western – Orange Line as it’s not on a major E/W arterial

Indeed, the near universal repetition of grid number coordinates is a striking thing in Chicago. You'll find them on every streetsign and every platform station name sign.

So it really is possible to ignore all the street names and navigate a city of co-ordinates, much as you would do in Utah cities where you'll encounter street names like "7200 South Street".

Unique features of a transit system are often keys to the spirit of the city. Grids were fundamental to the rapid settlement of the midwest and west, so for Chicago — a city built on commerce to and from those regions — the strong grid is an expression of the city's economic might. All cities have street networks, but few cities attach such strong symbolic value to the nature of their street network, or celebrate it so explicitly.

And its certainly true that if you ignore the street names and embrace Chicago's numerical grid, there's never any doubt where you are, but of course that implies a sense of "where" that is itself grid-defined. I'm sure Parisians take pride in the complete gridlessness of their city, and would say that "Place de la Bastille" is a much more satisfying answer to the question "where?" than any grid coordinates would be. But then, Paris wasn't built to conquer a frontier.

mapnificent breaking through?

Posted on June 4, 2011 in Education, Maps, Public Outreach, Simulation

As WalkScore's fine transit travel time tool languishes in extended beta, the alternative, Mapnificent, is getting some mainstream blog attention.

I may still be alone in this, but I as I explored with WalkScore's Matt Lerner here, I believe this tool, whoever finally perfects it, has revolutionary potential. It can easily be converted into a two-digit transit score which, unlike the WalkScore Transit Score, actually describes people's ability to get places. But it's bigger potential is as an alternatives analysis tool. When you city is facing a series of possible alternative transit projects, what if every citizen could use a tool like Mapnificent to see the exactly impact of each alternative on their mobility, and that of people and destinations they care about.

A major problem in transit politics today is that negative impacts of a project are obvious but benefits are often described in terms of ridership and development outcomes — things that don't matter to the selfish present-minded citizen. We will always have selfish present-minded citizens, and I'd rather work with them than complain about them. Until we help people see the way a proposed project will change their lives for the better, sensible transit projects will continue losing these debates.

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