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NYC Subway is getting another map redesigned makeover


w8Hou

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Don't know how you found it, but thanks.

 

NBC did a story with the map you can download via their servers.

 

NBC must have paid a lot of money to get that unfinished bloated waste map online.

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Many folks. Do remember that the map only displays weekday service. You would have to INFER from many experiences and some stuff from the map. Not very helpful.

 

To be more precise, RUSH HOUR service.

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That's soitenly true. Also, I miss those construction notice balloons that used to be on the bottom. They can be useful for the Brighton, E180, Rockaway and Pelham projects

 

Agreed, just like the one when late night and weekend service in lower Manhattan would be disrupted on the numbered lines.

 

Once again the mTA making more bad choices B)

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Agreed, just like the one when late night and weekend service in lower Manhattan would be disrupted on the numbered lines.

 

Once again the mTA making more bad choices B)

I mean sure, tourists don't USUALLY go to these areas. But it would be helpful for others who need a little reminding. You don't want people to go to "nonexistent" stations.

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Even non-tourists would find the service guide useful. Not everyone who doesn't know how to use the map is a tourist. Someone from Queens or say the UES who uses a car everyday and lives in the city for 5 years and suddenly has to take the train might be appalled by the lack of a guide. And don't forget, we just made a HUGE service revamp. Want to put out some specifics on the map rather than letting 500,000 heads getting scratched by their owners trying to make some sense out of both the service cut and the map? Like what Leroy said, it only shows rush-hour service, what about non-rush hour service or the wee-hours. It will be based on inference.

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Although during the weekends, there are often construction projects, there are certain lines, like the (M2)/(M) that aren't affected, yet run differently than on weekdays. For example, the (M) would be running 71st Avenue-Metropolitan Avenue weekdays, but Myrtle Avenue-Metropolitan Avenue weekends/nights. It isn't that obvious to infer by looking at the terminal squares.

Since most of us on these forums know the system and service guide inside out, we aren't as dependant on it as a regular person, but there are people who get confused. There are people who only take certain lines, and don't know about the service patterns of the other lines. For example, when I lived in Brighton Beach, I didn't know that the (M2) only ran as a shuttle on weekends, and didn't know that (at that time) the (N) was terminating at Pacific Street, and it was because I was able to look at the service guide that I was able to prevent myself from getting lost (at that time, I didn't even know the subway had a schedule, so I couldn't look at the schedule and figure out where the trains terminated at a certain time).

Then again, maybe I didn't know those things because I was only 9 years old. :)

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Although during the weekends, there are often construction projects, there are certain lines, like the (M2)/(M) that aren't affected, yet run differently than on weekdays. For example, the (M) would be running 71st Avenue-Metropolitan Avenue weekdays, but Myrtle Avenue-Metropolitan Avenue weekends/nights. It isn't that obvious to infer by looking at the terminal squares.

Since most of us on these forums know the system and service guide inside out, we aren't as dependant on it as a regular person, but there are people who get confused. There are people who only take certain lines, and don't know about the service patterns of the other lines. For example, when I lived in Brighton Beach, I didn't know that the (M2) only ran as a shuttle on weekends, and didn't know that (at that time) the (N) was terminating at Pacific Street, and it was because I was able to look at the service guide that I was able to prevent myself from getting lost (at that time, I didn't even know the subway had a schedule, so I couldn't look at the schedule and figure out where the trains terminated at a certain time).

Then again, maybe I didn't know those things because I was only 9 years old. :)

The reason why our system is unique in that there is a service guide provided along with the map is because we are a unique system.

First of all, we have 24/7 service, which itself is unique.

We have express/local service on extensive sections of routes.

That during the wee-hours, some expresses would become locals.

That during weekends and weekends, services may be truncated or not run at all.

That during rush hours, limited unidirectional express service is over on diferent lines in the outer boroughs or skip-stop service.

We also have different service levels, that could affect the route during anytime of day. Yes, in other systems, there are different service levels, but they only affect the frequency not necessarily the route.

 

Arguably, London has this problem with the District, Metropolitan, Picadilly and Northern lines. But, IMO, these problems are chronic throughout our system. A service guide would deem very useful for anyone trying to make sense out of it. Hell, the Brits could do the same and add something similar to their map.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Harry ;

Thanks for letting me in! As the designer of the current map since 1979 (sometimes I feel that back then we were only a little past the technology of cutting the graphics out of stone), I was very interested in the viewpoints expressed by your bloggers. Many good, smart observations and many uninformed observations and impractical schemes, as well.

I am going to go over all the responses on your site and, hopefully will write some intelligent answers to your reader's comments and to address their concerns. The most encouraging thing (that I did not see in every other response) was the generations old reverance for Massimo's map. Design blogs have not been so kind to us.Still quite a thing of beauty, Massimo's map pays homage to the Beck map of London, which also does little to guide the passengers to street destinations. Our map, for the last 32+ years, for better or worse, does not owe anything to Vignelli or Beck, like all the other big city transit systems.

 

Mike Hertz

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How about trying to design it with the buses (color in the thin white lines that represent streets with thr routes running on them), and add separate lines for each route, KICK (Jabbour) style?

 

Might be hard to do, but the main obstacle outside of midtown Manhattan (which might need an inset) would be the station names getting in the way. Here is an example of a of a special map done in the current style that included buses

(It's roughly the scale of a wall map, so it should at least be done for those, and shouldn't be all that hard to reduce a bit for the regular map):

willybmap.jpg

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Not a bad idea, but there are a few flaws:

 

1) The map isn't geographically accurate, so the streets usually don't travel at the angles that the map says they do. The bus maps are fairly accurate, but the subway maps aren't.

 

2) The map would have to be pretty big in order to accomodate all of those bus routes without it affecting the station names. If not, the routes themselves wouldn't be easily visible.

 

3) Adding all of the bus routes would take away from the main focus of the map: The subway lines.

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But the "focus" is likely only due to the convenience of separating them. Still, for those on the go, it would be nice to see what connects where, and where it goes, without having to consult a separate borough transit map, essentially.

 

(Again, it might be feasible more for wall sized maps, and it seems to work with station names on the example I gave).

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Harry ;

Thanks for letting me in! As the designer of the current map since 1979 (sometimes I feel that back then we were only a little past the technology of cutting the graphics out of stone), I was very interested in the viewpoints expressed by your bloggers. Many good, smart observations and many uninformed observations and impractical schemes, as well.

I am going to go over all the responses on your site and, hopefully will write some intelligent answers to your reader's comments and to address their concerns. The most encouraging thing (that I did not see in every other response) was the generations old reverance for Massimo's map. Design blogs have not been so kind to us.Still quite a thing of beauty, Massimo's map pays homage to the Beck map of London, which also does little to guide the passengers to street destinations. Our map, for the last 32+ years, for better or worse, does not owe anything to Vignelli or Beck, like all the other big city transit systems.

 

Mike Hertz

 

Looking forward to your comments! :cool:

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Not a bad idea, but there are a few flaws:

 

1) The map isn't geographically accurate, so the streets usually don't travel at the angles that the map says they do. The bus maps are fairly accurate, but the subway maps aren't.

 

2) The map would have to be pretty big in order to accomodate all of those bus routes without it affecting the station names. If not, the routes themselves wouldn't be easily visible.

 

3) Adding all of the bus routes would take away from the main focus of the map: The subway lines.

As discussed, making them geographically accurate would be problematic because you WANT certain areas to be depicted clearly. Look at the mess in FiDi and Downtown Brooklyn.

 

But I should say, having those bus routes actually help and they do more than those idiotic bubble things.

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