5 ms·

I always love a new map, and I can only judge New York City, but for that city, this isn't an improvement. It'd be fine in Manhattan, but it makes it look like

I always love a new map, and I can only judge New York City, but for that city, this isn't an improvement. It'd be fine in Manhattan, but it makes it look like the Queens and Brooklyn lines are super close, even walkable, when in fact they're miles apart. Someone may look at this map and (correctly) think that walking from the 4 to the N in Manhattan is easy, so you can also walk from the J in Brooklyn to the R in Queens, which would be, I don't know, at least an hour's walk. I think it's prioritizing aesthetic beauty over function.

BerislavLopac 7y ago
All symbolic metro maps work ignore physical locations in order to make labels and lines readable and clearly visible.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Most transit maps will generally try to preserve direction, though, in that A east of B will not all of a sudden wind up northeast or north of B. There are exceptions but the amount of directional liberties is fairly small on a standard map. A significant portion of the NYC map is not only spatially but directionally disoriented, which is just confusing. Especially since New Yorkers have a good grasp of the relative directions of things due to the fact that the grid is so prevalent.
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    The London map has both of these problems as well, it is both spatially and directionally disoriented, and not an improvement over the existing tube map.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Personally, the Toronto map bothers me far more than the NYC map, because here the Toronto street grid is depicted as a NE/SW alignment instead of N/S... and Toronto is closer to a true N/S alignment than Manhattan, which gets a N/S alignment on the map.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
BerislavLopac 7y ago
Check this out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21817906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21817906
mellosouls 7y ago
I think it's prioritizing aesthetic beauty over function. This style of map is not intended to be used as a walking guide or you would be correct. They are for determining the simplest way of getting from station A to station B once you are on the train. I think you are aware of that so representing the other "walking" world within this one is essentially breaking an axiom of that intent, like asking for a 2D map that represents 3 dimensions.
- braindeath 7y ago
  Maybe he is aware of the existing maps ... and as he states “this isn’t an improvement”. Since the current NYC maps serves both purposes astonishingly well.
- Atheros 7y ago
  But our goal isn't to get to a different station- it's to get from our origin to our destination. Previous studies of how people try to navigate have shown that people make heavy use of landmarks like parks which is why the MTAs map shows parks and major streets. Passengers also take into account how the train feels to be moving which this map doesn't convey. If the train obviously feels to turn left but the map doesn't show it, passengers get anxious. His current map version: https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/ https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/ There are other problems with this map that demonstrate to me at least that the designer simply hasn't put as much thought into the design as the MTA. Some examples: - Suppose I am on the Lexington Ave line and I want to know if my train (a 4 train) will stop at Astor place. I see a dot but no labels. So I start searching down the map for what the dot means. Eventually two green lines becomes one green line. What does that mean? I give up and start scanning upward and see that one line is for the 4/5 and the other line is for the 6. I finally have my answer. The MTAs map just tells me what trains stop at Astor place. - This map implies that there are free transfers to the Path train when in fact there is not. - This map implies that I can transfer between the 8th and 7th ave lines at Penn Station when in fact I can not. - Is my Q train going to stop at 49th st in Manhattan? No one knows. That's just a minor design problem that was caused by a lack of space. The lack of space was caused by the designer's decision to illustrate lines individually.
hbosch 7y ago
These maps are designed for subway use only, not for walking. It would be wrong to infer anything other than which stops follow each other sequentially and which stops link to other lines. If you see someone walking on the street, using a subway map for directions, please be kind and help them. It's better to read this more similarly to an electrical diagram rather than a cartographic representation of the city.
ummonk 7y ago
Yeah. It's only marginally better than Massimo Vignelli's terrible subway map. Designers seem to love making subway maps that are aesthetically pleasing but impractical for the end user.
- jstummbillig 7y ago
  Or maybe, due to different requirements, it's just not possible to design one map that works for everyone.
fsckboy 7y ago
I think it's crappy that all the other responses you've received so far are ignoring that you are comparing the existing NYC subway map to a map that claims to be better. the NYC subway map is better, so perhaps whatever design principles it uses would work better in Paris also. And if not, that might teach us all something about map-making, unlike the other replies to your comment which teach nothing because they can't seem to learn anything. peace out.
- BerislavLopac 7y ago
  Oh it seems we're not looking at the same map; the one in the article seems to be an old version. How about this one? https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/ https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    That looks much better since it distorts relative geography less terribly (stops are in the same relative geographic orientation to each other as they are in real life, more or less.) The major issue I have with this version is the strange inclusion of the LIRR when no other commuter railroad is included in its entirety. And the main issue there is that it's relegated to a tiny corner of the northeast map, when in reality those are trains that take 4 hours and take you 110 miles out of the city. In fact, why bother showing that on a map of frequent, rapid transit, when the trains to Montauk, for example, run a handful of times a day?
MrSourz 7y ago
My understanding is New York’s metro map is an anomaly due to there historically being 3 unconnected and competing subways. Thus sometimes to get places you had to transfer and the relative locations and distances between stops was relevant. Normal subway maps, in my experience from living in 2 cities with a subway (Toronto and Berlin), aren’t like this and derived from work by a guy named Harry Beck [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/iBErp8qvWZg https://youtu.be/iBErp8qvWZg
kevindong 7y ago
> It'd be fine in Manhattan, but it makes it look like the Queens and Brooklyn lines are super close, even walkable, when in fact they're miles apart. The current MTA map is basically just as bad at this. If you look at the two maps side by side, they more or less equally exaggerate the distances between all of the lines/stations. https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-10/subway_map_app_web_Oct_2019.pdf https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-10/subway_map_... http://www.inat.fr/files/new-york-city-metro-subway-map.png http://www.inat.fr/files/new-york-city-metro-subway-map.png IMPORTANT EDIT: when I wrote the above comment, I assumed that the map shown in the article was the same map the architect currently has on their website. This turned out to be a dramatically wrong assumption. The image in the article is: https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/legacy/2014/04/09/nyc_small.png https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/legacy/2014/04/09/...

BerislavLopac 7y ago

All symbolic metro maps work ignore physical locations in order to make labels and lines readable and clearly visible.

bobthepanda 7y ago
Most transit maps will generally try to preserve direction, though, in that A east of B will not all of a sudden wind up northeast or north of B. There are exceptions but the amount of directional liberties is fairly small on a standard map. A significant portion of the NYC map is not only spatially but directionally disoriented, which is just confusing. Especially since New Yorkers have a good grasp of the relative directions of things due to the fact that the grid is so prevalent.
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  The London map has both of these problems as well, it is both spatially and directionally disoriented, and not an improvement over the existing tube map.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Personally, the Toronto map bothers me far more than the NYC map, because here the Toronto street grid is depicted as a NE/SW alignment instead of N/S... and Toronto is closer to a true N/S alignment than Manhattan, which gets a N/S alignment on the map.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

BerislavLopac 7y ago

Check this out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21817906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21817906

mellosouls 7y ago

I think it's prioritizing aesthetic beauty over function. This style of map is not intended to be used as a walking guide or you would be correct. They are for determining the simplest way of getting from station A to station B once you are on the train. I think you are aware of that so representing the other "walking" world within this one is essentially breaking an axiom of that intent, like asking for a 2D map that represents 3 dimensions.

braindeath 7y ago
Maybe he is aware of the existing maps ... and as he states “this isn’t an improvement”. Since the current NYC maps serves both purposes astonishingly well.
Atheros 7y ago
But our goal isn't to get to a different station- it's to get from our origin to our destination. Previous studies of how people try to navigate have shown that people make heavy use of landmarks like parks which is why the MTAs map shows parks and major streets. Passengers also take into account how the train feels to be moving which this map doesn't convey. If the train obviously feels to turn left but the map doesn't show it, passengers get anxious. His current map version: https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/ https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/ There are other problems with this map that demonstrate to me at least that the designer simply hasn't put as much thought into the design as the MTA. Some examples: - Suppose I am on the Lexington Ave line and I want to know if my train (a 4 train) will stop at Astor place. I see a dot but no labels. So I start searching down the map for what the dot means. Eventually two green lines becomes one green line. What does that mean? I give up and start scanning upward and see that one line is for the 4/5 and the other line is for the 6. I finally have my answer. The MTAs map just tells me what trains stop at Astor place. - This map implies that there are free transfers to the Path train when in fact there is not. - This map implies that I can transfer between the 8th and 7th ave lines at Penn Station when in fact I can not. - Is my Q train going to stop at 49th st in Manhattan? No one knows. That's just a minor design problem that was caused by a lack of space. The lack of space was caused by the designer's decision to illustrate lines individually.

hbosch 7y ago

These maps are designed for subway use only, not for walking. It would be wrong to infer anything other than which stops follow each other sequentially and which stops link to other lines. If you see someone walking on the street, using a subway map for directions, please be kind and help them. It's better to read this more similarly to an electrical diagram rather than a cartographic representation of the city.

ummonk 7y ago

Yeah. It's only marginally better than Massimo Vignelli's terrible subway map. Designers seem to love making subway maps that are aesthetically pleasing but impractical for the end user.

jstummbillig 7y ago
Or maybe, due to different requirements, it's just not possible to design one map that works for everyone.

fsckboy 7y ago

I think it's crappy that all the other responses you've received so far are ignoring that you are comparing the existing NYC subway map to a map that claims to be better. the NYC subway map is better, so perhaps whatever design principles it uses would work better in Paris also. And if not, that might teach us all something about map-making, unlike the other replies to your comment which teach nothing because they can't seem to learn anything. peace out.

BerislavLopac 7y ago
Oh it seems we're not looking at the same map; the one in the article seems to be an old version. How about this one? https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/ https://www.inat.fr/metro/new-york/
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  That looks much better since it distorts relative geography less terribly (stops are in the same relative geographic orientation to each other as they are in real life, more or less.) The major issue I have with this version is the strange inclusion of the LIRR when no other commuter railroad is included in its entirety. And the main issue there is that it's relegated to a tiny corner of the northeast map, when in reality those are trains that take 4 hours and take you 110 miles out of the city. In fact, why bother showing that on a map of frequent, rapid transit, when the trains to Montauk, for example, run a handful of times a day?

MrSourz 7y ago

My understanding is New York’s metro map is an anomaly due to there historically being 3 unconnected and competing subways. Thus sometimes to get places you had to transfer and the relative locations and distances between stops was relevant. Normal subway maps, in my experience from living in 2 cities with a subway (Toronto and Berlin), aren’t like this and derived from work by a guy named Harry Beck [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/iBErp8qvWZg https://youtu.be/iBErp8qvWZg

kevindong 7y ago

> It'd be fine in Manhattan, but it makes it look like the Queens and Brooklyn lines are super close, even walkable, when in fact they're miles apart. The current MTA map is basically just as bad at this. If you look at the two maps side by side, they more or less equally exaggerate the distances between all of the lines/stations. https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-10/subway_map_app_web_Oct_2019.pdf https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-10/subway_map_... http://www.inat.fr/files/new-york-city-metro-subway-map.png http://www.inat.fr/files/new-york-city-metro-subway-map.png IMPORTANT EDIT: when I wrote the above comment, I assumed that the map shown in the article was the same map the architect currently has on their website. This turned out to be a dramatically wrong assumption. The image in the article is: https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/legacy/2014/04/09/nyc_small.png https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/legacy/2014/04/09/...