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The comments about the "old" map (not the original Italian one, the one we all have a hardcopy of on our bookshelves) being unreadable strike me as a little off
by remarkEon 6y ago
The comments about the "old" map (not the original Italian one, the one we all have a hardcopy of on our bookshelves) being unreadable strike me as a little off. Maps are always going to be contextual, and a mark of a "good" map in my mind has always been if, after a certain amount of time using it, you no longer have to rely on it. Having spent a lot of time in New York, traveling there when I was younger and now for business but never living there for longer than a summer, the "old" map served this purpose pretty well. Maybe it was a little hostile to the user, but this sort of encourages you to just straight up memorize things. This isn't to say the maps should be hostile as a means to makes people memorize its contents, rather that this one was maybe "just usable enough that tourists can get around" and "just hostile enough that people who use the subway a lot would just memorize things". Traveling from JFK to Grand Central and then up to Columbia became muscle memory after the second trip.
- esquevin 6y agoA live map also reflects all the current changes the subway is underway, such as maintenance, closed stations, etc… Of course people managed to go use the subway for decades using this old map, what they're trying to do is improve on things. I for sure would like to see that kind of tech used for other subways in the world.
- remarkEon 6y agoYeah, I’m not denigrating the live map. It’s great, and while it seems it’ll be a while until I can test it out in real time (thanks, COVID), the design looks fantastic to me.
- bobthepanda 6y agoMost other subways will just stop services on a segment and use buses to fill the gap. New York is rather unique in that the subway was engineered, or rather over-engineered, to be able to reroute trains. (E.g. This E train will be making local stops in Queens and running over the M line to West 4th St.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoI mean the MTA does that too The N/Q into Astoria, the F line in Downtown Brooklyn
- bobthepanda 6y agoWhat I mean to say is that the level of changes the map needs to reflect is pretty much only useful to New York, since they are the only system consistently rerouting trains rather than stopping segments entirely.