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The London Tube maps seem ideal in comparison. They are minimalist, non geographic, and they are scaled depending on your location in the Tube platform system.
by flarg 7y ago
The London Tube maps seem ideal in comparison. They are minimalist, non geographic, and they are scaled depending on your location in the Tube platform system. Also, they are paper.
- addicted 7y agoThe NY subway tried the non geographic maps in the past. There was an article that was linked on HN about it. It failed miserably. The NY Subway map being geographical has a lot of excellent features that made it extremely popular.
- nolok 7y agoParis does both for reference, and it feels like both have a different purpose, geographical maps are great when you know the place you need to go on the city but nothing about the stations. The non geographical are great when you know the station to get off to, but not how to reach it
- addicted 7y agoI believe when the NYC subway tried that they did have both. I think what this misses, at least as far as Manhattan is concerned, is the grid system that already exists. Once you understand the grid, and the relationship between the subway system and the grid, then knowing the subway map is as good as knowing the geographic map and vice versa. The first time I visited NYC was in 2004 before our handheld map systems. It took me all of 15 minutes to know exactly where I needed to go and how to get there without ever looking at a map, because my friend explained the system to me. A map that divorces the geographic and subway systems simply leads to the necessity of learning 2 different things that are very intrinsically related, and in the case of Manhattan can actually substitute for each other.