Alternative Rail Maps

[Jason Saunders]

Homemade subway maps have long been a pursuit of cartography nerds and transit lovers, a result of the perennial debate between the proponents of usability, who favor more distorted, schematic designs (hallo, Londoners), and the realists, who want more geographic accuracy in their maps (yo, New York).

This site claims to have ten of the best:

www.treehugger.com/galleries/2009/08/worlds-best-alternative-subway-maps.php?page=1

[James Fujita]

you can make fairly good arguments in both directions.

personally, I prefer the schematic map for actual travel, even if it distorts reality. they're just easier to read!

on the other hand, maps that are geographically accurate can be handy when you're trying to design a system, improve a system or compare two or more systems. (comparing a tight knit web of rail lines vs. a skeleton system, for example).

[ slightly off topic, but ironically, geographically accurate maps can also be misleading if you leave out parts: consider Tokyo. at first glance, Tokyo's tight grid of subway lines looks like a total mismatch for Los Angeles' spread, but that's only because subway-centric mapmakers have left out all of the connecting private commuter rail lines and the suburban JR Lines. we can build a Tokyo-esque system here, but we're looking at the wrong map layer if we leave out the Yamanote, Chuo and Sobu and Keio, Tobu, Keikyu, etc.... ]

[Jason Saunders]

I very much enjoyed this 27 minute BBC documentary on the London Underground Map which has been copied world wide by virutally every mass transit system in the world including Los Angeles.

www.guba.com/watch/2000955184