7 ms·

The Manual That Dictates Every Detail of the NYC Subway

71 points by SimplyUseless 11y ago

ademarre 11y ago
Is there a properly digitized PDF available anywhere? I appreciate what http://thestandardsmanual.com/ http://thestandardsmanual.com/ is doing here, but their hover-photo-to-zoom thing is hard to read.
- peterjmag 11y ago
  Not a proper scan, but still pretty decent: https://daringfawnyball.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/nyctamanual.pdf https://daringfawnyball.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/nyctaman... via http://blog.fawny.org/2013/02/19/nycmta1970/ http://blog.fawny.org/2013/02/19/nycmta1970/
  - ademarre 11y ago
    Nice. It looks like that PDF is made from the full-size images from http://thestandardsmanual.com/ http://thestandardsmanual.com/. I was about to extract them myself until you pointed to this PDF. Thank you. Did anyone else notice that ALL of the full-size images are pre-loaded with http://thestandardsmanual.com/page.html http://thestandardsmanual.com/page.html ? According to Chrome's Dev. Tools that's 378 requests for 109 MB!
- comrh 11y ago
  It might be too pejorative but to me it is such a designer thing to do to take pictures of the pages in the book instead of nice, easy to download and view scans of each loose leaf page.
- BorisMelnik 11y ago
  semi-relevant also: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/27/5755158/massimo-vignelli-nyc-subway-map-designer-dies-at-83 http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/27/5755158/massimo-vignelli-n...
- avn2109 11y ago
  It really does seem like a total design-hipster move to build a silly rollover-centric UX without an obvious way to just get the pdf.
asherkin 11y ago
TfL have similar documents for London Underground which are a great read if you're interested in this sort of thing. Signage: https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/lu-signs-manual.pdf https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/lu-signs-man... Station Design: http://www.persona.uk.com/nle/B-Core_docs/G/NLE-G1.pdf http://www.persona.uk.com/nle/B-Core_docs/G/NLE-G1.pdf
danso 11y ago
FYI this is from 2014. Since then, the OP created a Kickstarter for a reissue of the manual...I have it sitting (awkwardly) on my bookshelf. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestandardsmanual/full-size-reissue-of-the-nycta-graphics-standards https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestandardsmanual/full...
excepttheweasel 11y ago
It's unfortunate that such a lovely document seems to have produced a terrible subway system. Having regularly taken the subway in Beijing, London, Washington D.C., Tokyo. The New York subway seems almost deliberately difficult to navigate at times. Subway signs are often misleading. Lacking in places or just outright missing. Perhaps they focused too much on the appearance without considering usability.
- danso 11y ago
  Well, the subway system predates the Standards Manual by about 70 to 100 years (depends if you count the system from the first trains or its first underground section)...so it's wrong to infer that too many resources were devoted to the visual design rather than logistics and construction of the system over the decades. The system is complicated and convoluted because of both its age and its coverage. Certainly, the signage could be better in some places...is there a better way to sort out the mess in the midtown stations (Times Square, Herald Square, etc)? Sure...but those stations connect so many routes and other systems that some confusion will be inherent.
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    Combine that with a bureaucratic nightmare and not much gets done to fix issues or improve obvious areas. I remember recently reading about the amount of trash on the tracks and it was because antiquated equipment and horrid procurement processes topped off by some really annoying work rules. http://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dumps-fail-to-meet-cleaning-standards-according-to-audit-1.10437148 http://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dump...
- oinksoft 11y ago
  The MTA has multiple tracks and express trains, that alone makes it a world apart from the DC Metro.
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  The core problem is that the New York subway system isn't one subway system, it's three: Interboro Rapid Transit (IRT), which built a lot of elevated lines from the Bronx into Manhattan (all the Manhattan lines have been torn down, including the second and third avenue el, which were never replaced with the promised Second Avenue Subway)... they ran shorter, narrower train cars and their remaining lines turned into the 1234567 and Times Square Shuttle (internally, the 0) Brooklyn-Manhattan transit (BMT), which ran a bunch of trains into Brooklyn... and the Independent Subway System (IND), which was run by the city with BMT car standards and was responsible for the Manhattan portions of the ABCDEF trains, the G, and the Rockaway Shuttle (internally the H) and bought a few more rail lines in Brooklyn as well (the tail ends of the A and the F). If you look up the maps, the places where the subway really looks awkwardly constructed, the stations are sprawling, the tracks are at funny angles... it's because they were competitors. Why does the 2/3 cross the L out in Brooklyn without a transfer when the stations are right on top of each other? They were run by competitors. Why do the F/A/C/G shun the other lines as they plow through downtown Brooklyn? Why do you need to walk from the 6 to the F at 63rd Street? Why can't you transfer between the Hewes Street and Broadway (G) stations if they're right on top of each other? Why can't anyone figure out how to navigate Court Street? Why, for years, was there a transfer between the BDFM and downtown 6 at Bleeker St, but not the uptown 6? (That silly little bubble in the subway map.) To this day there is exactly one spot where an IRT train shares a platform with a BMT train (Queensboro Plaza). And there are essentially two places where trains transfer between the old IND and BMT tracks (at the Manhattan Bridge, and Queens Plaza -- the third, under Central Park between the Q and the F, occasionally figures in maintenance-related detours). The good news is that New York is lousy with subway stations, and if there's a disruption on one line, there's a very good chance you can still get where you're going on another. The bad news is that's fundamentally confusing.
weinzierl 11y ago
The designer of NYC's subway map, Massimo Vignelli, has published a meta style guide "THE VIGNELLI CANON". This little book reveals our guidelines - those set by ourselves for ourselves. It's only 49 pages and available for free on his website: http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf
- melvinmt 11y ago
  Thanks, I bought the paperback for $30 on amazon, had no idea it was also available for free!
Intermernet 11y ago
> "If the manual had been designed today, documents like this wouldn't exist. They'd be nested within dense file trees, stored in data centers in anonymous buildings in rural parts of the world, and accessed through individual computers." They do exist, and thanks to the internet, are more easily found than ever. Many companies post their design guidelines, even if no external parties will ever use them beyond looking at the final products: https://developer.nike.com/nikefuel/brand-guidelines.html https://developer.nike.com/nikefuel/brand-guidelines.html http://hannahkimdesign.com/mcd_styleguide/ http://hannahkimdesign.com/mcd_styleguide/ http://guidelines.usability.gov/ http://guidelines.usability.gov/ And some that are used by people outside of the organisation: http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti... https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/ https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserEx...

71 points by SimplyUseless 11y ago

Is there a properly digitized PDF available anywhere? I appreciate what http://thestandardsmanual.com/ http://thestandardsmanual.com/ is doing here, but their hover-photo-to-zoom thing is hard to read.

peterjmag 11y ago
Not a proper scan, but still pretty decent: https://daringfawnyball.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/nyctamanual.pdf https://daringfawnyball.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/nyctaman... via http://blog.fawny.org/2013/02/19/nycmta1970/ http://blog.fawny.org/2013/02/19/nycmta1970/
- ademarre 11y ago
  Nice. It looks like that PDF is made from the full-size images from http://thestandardsmanual.com/ http://thestandardsmanual.com/. I was about to extract them myself until you pointed to this PDF. Thank you. Did anyone else notice that ALL of the full-size images are pre-loaded with http://thestandardsmanual.com/page.html http://thestandardsmanual.com/page.html ? According to Chrome's Dev. Tools that's 378 requests for 109 MB!
comrh 11y ago
It might be too pejorative but to me it is such a designer thing to do to take pictures of the pages in the book instead of nice, easy to download and view scans of each loose leaf page.
BorisMelnik 11y ago
semi-relevant also: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/27/5755158/massimo-vignelli-nyc-subway-map-designer-dies-at-83 http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/27/5755158/massimo-vignelli-n...
avn2109 11y ago
It really does seem like a total design-hipster move to build a silly rollover-centric UX without an obvious way to just get the pdf.

asherkin 11y ago

TfL have similar documents for London Underground which are a great read if you're interested in this sort of thing. Signage: https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/lu-signs-manual.pdf https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/lu-signs-man... Station Design: http://www.persona.uk.com/nle/B-Core_docs/G/NLE-G1.pdf http://www.persona.uk.com/nle/B-Core_docs/G/NLE-G1.pdf

danso 11y ago

FYI this is from 2014. Since then, the OP created a Kickstarter for a reissue of the manual...I have it sitting (awkwardly) on my bookshelf. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestandardsmanual/full-size-reissue-of-the-nycta-graphics-standards https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestandardsmanual/full...

excepttheweasel 11y ago

It's unfortunate that such a lovely document seems to have produced a terrible subway system. Having regularly taken the subway in Beijing, London, Washington D.C., Tokyo. The New York subway seems almost deliberately difficult to navigate at times. Subway signs are often misleading. Lacking in places or just outright missing. Perhaps they focused too much on the appearance without considering usability.

danso 11y ago
Well, the subway system predates the Standards Manual by about 70 to 100 years (depends if you count the system from the first trains or its first underground section)...so it's wrong to infer that too many resources were devoted to the visual design rather than logistics and construction of the system over the decades. The system is complicated and convoluted because of both its age and its coverage. Certainly, the signage could be better in some places...is there a better way to sort out the mess in the midtown stations (Times Square, Herald Square, etc)? Sure...but those stations connect so many routes and other systems that some confusion will be inherent.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  Combine that with a bureaucratic nightmare and not much gets done to fix issues or improve obvious areas. I remember recently reading about the amount of trash on the tracks and it was because antiquated equipment and horrid procurement processes topped off by some really annoying work rules. http://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dumps-fail-to-meet-cleaning-standards-according-to-audit-1.10437148 http://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dump...
oinksoft 11y ago
The MTA has multiple tracks and express trains, that alone makes it a world apart from the DC Metro.
fennecfoxen 11y ago
The core problem is that the New York subway system isn't one subway system, it's three: Interboro Rapid Transit (IRT), which built a lot of elevated lines from the Bronx into Manhattan (all the Manhattan lines have been torn down, including the second and third avenue el, which were never replaced with the promised Second Avenue Subway)... they ran shorter, narrower train cars and their remaining lines turned into the 1234567 and Times Square Shuttle (internally, the 0) Brooklyn-Manhattan transit (BMT), which ran a bunch of trains into Brooklyn... and the Independent Subway System (IND), which was run by the city with BMT car standards and was responsible for the Manhattan portions of the ABCDEF trains, the G, and the Rockaway Shuttle (internally the H) and bought a few more rail lines in Brooklyn as well (the tail ends of the A and the F). If you look up the maps, the places where the subway really looks awkwardly constructed, the stations are sprawling, the tracks are at funny angles... it's because they were competitors. Why does the 2/3 cross the L out in Brooklyn without a transfer when the stations are right on top of each other? They were run by competitors. Why do the F/A/C/G shun the other lines as they plow through downtown Brooklyn? Why do you need to walk from the 6 to the F at 63rd Street? Why can't you transfer between the Hewes Street and Broadway (G) stations if they're right on top of each other? Why can't anyone figure out how to navigate Court Street? Why, for years, was there a transfer between the BDFM and downtown 6 at Bleeker St, but not the uptown 6? (That silly little bubble in the subway map.) To this day there is exactly one spot where an IRT train shares a platform with a BMT train (Queensboro Plaza). And there are essentially two places where trains transfer between the old IND and BMT tracks (at the Manhattan Bridge, and Queens Plaza -- the third, under Central Park between the Q and the F, occasionally figures in maintenance-related detours). The good news is that New York is lousy with subway stations, and if there's a disruption on one line, there's a very good chance you can still get where you're going on another. The bad news is that's fundamentally confusing.

weinzierl 11y ago

The designer of NYC's subway map, Massimo Vignelli, has published a meta style guide "THE VIGNELLI CANON". This little book reveals our guidelines - those set by ourselves for ourselves. It's only 49 pages and available for free on his website: http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf

melvinmt 11y ago
Thanks, I bought the paperback for $30 on amazon, had no idea it was also available for free!

Intermernet 11y ago

> "If the manual had been designed today, documents like this wouldn't exist. They'd be nested within dense file trees, stored in data centers in anonymous buildings in rural parts of the world, and accessed through individual computers." They do exist, and thanks to the internet, are more easily found than ever. Many companies post their design guidelines, even if no external parties will ever use them beyond looking at the final products: https://developer.nike.com/nikefuel/brand-guidelines.html https://developer.nike.com/nikefuel/brand-guidelines.html http://hannahkimdesign.com/mcd_styleguide/ http://hannahkimdesign.com/mcd_styleguide/ http://guidelines.usability.gov/ http://guidelines.usability.gov/ And some that are used by people outside of the organisation: http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti... https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/ https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserEx...