In response to all the straight-liners out there, reductio ad absurdum:
Hey, you’re underground, so you don’t need to see the bay, right?
(By popular demand, black and white t-shirts are available on Zazzle. Why in the hell are black t-shirts so expensive? Any other more reasonably priced vendors out there?)
For the record, I like most of what BART did on their new map, just not the part in SF. I’m all for straightening out wiggles, but the curves of the Mission are important.
Geofftech.co.uk has an excellent archive of alternate takes on the iconic London Tube map.
The literal version:
vs the same area optimized:
This is obviously better, but note that many ‘curves of significance’ are preserved — St. Paul’s, Regents Park, Covent Garden, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus…
There are tradeoffs however, as highlighted in this surprising map made by RodCorp — the dotted lines connect stations that are less than a third of a mile apart (where it would be quicker to walk than ride):
(If only we had such a dense network of metro lines to have to worry about such things.)
One last argument — Baker St to Waterloo is about the same distance as Powell to 24th. Two maps, same scale:
And here is how each transit map depict(ed) the curves along these routes of roughly the same distance:
September 18, 2009 at 12:50 pm |
[...] a transit map let me to create this hyperlinear BART diagram in a reductio ad absurdum exercise. New post here, comparing how the London Tube map handles curves on the same scale as the BART [...]
September 18, 2009 at 1:01 pm |
Can I get that on a t-shirt?
September 18, 2009 at 1:16 pm |
Bravo! I’d like the first image on a t-shirt too!
September 18, 2009 at 1:20 pm |
Now you’ve made me wish I was going back to London soon. :(
September 18, 2009 at 2:08 pm |
Ok, so at first I thought you were being silly about the Mission curve. Downright fanatacist even. But after this post, I’m thinking I miss it too. Touché, mes frères. Touché.
September 18, 2009 at 5:57 pm |
By popular demand, black and white t-shirts are available on Zazzle. (Through Sunday use the code PIRATEDAYTEE for $3 off. And why the hell are black t-shirts so expensive? Any other more reasonably priced vendors out there?)
September 18, 2009 at 6:35 pm |
Order placed, thanks juanito
September 18, 2009 at 10:34 pm |
I LOVE the reductio ad absurdum version. Just fix the Castro Valley error and this is brilliant.
September 18, 2009 at 10:41 pm |
@DaveO, do you think I should nudge Castro Valley to the right a little bit?
September 19, 2009 at 2:36 am |
[...] post of a few days ago, Burrito Justice has posted a revised, apparently Tron-inspired hyperlinear BART map. It’s really nifty looking, so nifty in fact that they went ahead and made t-shirts out of [...]
September 21, 2009 at 11:00 pm |
Nice hyper-straightened version. BTW, there was a time when humankind actually hadn’t developed the idea of an abstracted, simplified metro map and the maps of the London Underground were so realistic and respectful of actual geography that they were basically nonfunctional. The first abstracted/simplified map was an unsolicited proposal that a draftsman named Henry Beck drew in 1933, who hand-lettered thousands of letters in the London Underground typeface in the process. It’s interesting, as you point out, that the process of abstraction can reach a point of diminished returns when it erases something as recognizable as the curve in the Mission or the Bay.
September 21, 2009 at 11:37 pm |
I love this quote from a Guardian article a few years back.
“No, it’s definitely not a map. A map is geographic. This is a diagram.” Beck would have averred. The engineering draughtsman of Finchley referred to his creation as the “London Underground diagram”.
Also, “Mr Beck’s Underground Map” by Ken Garland is supposed to be a good book.
September 21, 2009 at 11:44 pm |
[...] Use This Map Don’t get me wrong, I like my reductio ad absurdum BART map (and if I may say so myself it looks quite good on a black t-shirt). But it was a parody, [...]
September 22, 2009 at 10:24 pm |
Aha! Thanks for the Ken Garland recommendation. Will definitely check it out. That is indeed a great quote from Beck.
September 23, 2009 at 10:48 pm |
So the London transit managers removed the Thames from the Tube map. The mayor was unamused and had them put it back.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6201988/River-Thames-restored-to-London-Tube-map-by-Boris-Johnson.html
(I somehow don’t think Gavin will get involved here.)
November 2, 2009 at 2:23 am |
[...] this looks like a subway map! (Especially given R2, 3P0 and Chewie are [...]
January 14, 2010 at 12:38 pm |
[...] valid justification for the new map. And why, yes, I will show you with pictures. (I’ve been meaning to draw up better diagrams contrasting the London Tube and SF BART maps, so here we [...]